Erik Hatcher wrote: > We don't really need to get hung up on the syntax of a descriptor at > this stage. Let's get something working in HEAD and work with it. > XDoclet can be used to generate these descriptors anyway, and it likely > be considered the best practice way to do it anyway.
I think the syntax of the descriptor is pretty important. Xdoclet is great - but the fact that it can generate any descriptor shouldn't mean the syntax of the XML can be anything. The biggest problem with XML is that people just throw away new syntaxes, and claim some tools will support it anyway so it doesn't matter what's inside. Just look at the dozens of RSS versions, or the "office" XML, or the dozens of "configuration" XML formats. >> That's it. The DTD is dynamic just like the DTD of ANT is dynamic. > > This is where I differ. I like what I've heard so far, but I really > don't like the total looseness of Ant build files, and I don't think we > should propagate that same scheme. I understand how it evolved and > that ease of use was one of the primary factors for Ant's looseness, > not to mention that it was around before namespaces were really > solidified. The "looseness" is pretty fundamental in ant, and at least IMO is one of the reasons it works so well. > We don't need these descriptors to have dynamic element names, do we? > > Again, lets not get hung up on the descriptor syntax. Working > implementation first - then we can debate the details. We can make it > the defining goal for an Ant 1.6 release when all the fiddly details > have been ironed out! :) We have had working implementation(s) for quite a while. It's the fiddly details that are the problem. Costin
