Author: farra Date: Tue Jun 8 10:31:24 2004 New Revision: 20913 Added: avalon/trunk/tools/magic/README Log: Added README from niclas's original email
Added: avalon/trunk/tools/magic/README ============================================================================== --- (empty file) +++ avalon/trunk/tools/magic/README Tue Jun 8 10:31:24 2004 @@ -0,0 +1,120 @@ +MAGIC - Magic Ain't Gonna Interest Critics + +Magic is an experimental build system that I have been working on for a couple +of days. + +What is it? +=========== + +Magic is a generic build system, influenced by both the good parts as well as +the bad parts of Maven; + - Plugins are good. + - Standard build layouts are good. + - Downloadable artifacts are good. + - Automatic dependency resolution is good. + - Scripting can(!) be convenient. + - preGoal/postGoal can be useful. + - Ant is an incredible collection of well-tested code. + - XML is not for programming language syntax. + - Why do I need to know another programming language than Java? + - XML is slow to parse. + - Don't mix Ant XML with other XML. + +Once Magic is built and 'installed', it is a command-line utility which is +invoked with the command 'magic'. + +Magic is small. The engine Jar file is <20k. + +Magic is fast. Practically no overhead at all. Most processing on-demand only. + +Magic uses partial Avalon Framework for the scripts, namely Contextualizable, +LogEnabled, Serviceable and Initializable. + +Magic leverages the BeanShell scripting interpreter (which is also fairly +small ~150k). + +Magic can build and install BeanShell script plugins, which makes up the +complete build system. Currently, I have created; plugin, prepare, artifact, +java, jar and xdoc plugins. + +Magic allows the programmer to add their own build.bsh scripts at each project +for specialized processing. + +Magic has a properties file chain, for multi-level overrides. + +Magic knows about projects sharing a common higher level system, so called +"Project System". + +Magic has a powerful and flexible, yet simple, notification system, that +handles preGoal/postGoal constructs. + + +What is it NOT? +=============== + +Magic is not perfect. + +Magic is not complete, or intend to compete with the breadth of plugins for +Maven. + +Magic is not bug-free. + +Magic is not optimized at all. Just happened to be fast be design. + +Magic is not necessary going to become a proper product/project, only an +experiment at this stage. + +Magic is not going to replace Ant. + + +Where is it? +============ +Magic is checked into the Avalon subversion repo, under tools/magic, and it +also requires the system/ directory, which contains all the definition and +dependency files. system/ is the 'Project System". +legacy/avalon/framwork/api has been updated with a build.properties file, to +allow Magic to build it (which takes 3secs on my machine without the +download). + + +How do I build and test run it? +=============================== +0. You need to run on Linux, or create your own .bat file equivalent to the +'magic' one. You will also need Ant and JDK 1.4 or later. +1. Make sure you have BeanShell 2.0b1 in your Maven repository, under the id +bsh. +2. go to tools/magic/engine +3. run "ant" +4. add the directory tools/magic/engine/target/dist/bin to your PATH. +5. go to tools/magic +6. run "magic build" - This will validate and install the plugins. +7. go to legacy/avalon/framework/api +8. run "magic java.compile" or "magic jar.jar" + + +What will happen next? +====================== +Features that I will add over the next few days (not necessarily in this +order); + * JavaDoc plugin. + * Unittesting with reporting. + * Fix up so that the xdoc plugin works (now missing some jars in classpath). + * Filtering in source copying. + * Better handling of Site xdoc aggregation in the xdoc plugin. + * Add xdocs to the existing plugins. + * Some simple sequencing mechanism. + * Better error handling. + * Better Logging solution, currently a hardcoded ConsoleLogger. + +I will try to entertain any feedback received, but please be realistic about +any feature requests. I will try my best to get you going, and explain how +one can write plugins, and how the system hangs together. + +I hope someone will find the experiment interesting, and as the acronym +suggests, I will not entertain people who only wishes to piss on the 'bad +things', I have better things to do than convince people with opinions :o) + +-------------- + +Original Source: + http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=avalon-dev&m=108525974017706&w=2 --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
