I'd like to kick off a discussion on what needs to be done to get Ant 1.6 to a release. I'm just going to ramble through some random thoughts I have been having in no particular order just to get discussion started.
I don't have any fixed timeframe in mind, or anything so concrete at this stage but I think we need to start looking at it. After all, I can only stand seeing the javah bug reported so many times. Funny how often there is one bug that gets a lot of airplay that it indicates a release may be a good idea.
1. Code cleanup
there is a lot of code with HACK, EXPERIMENTAL, etc tags which I think we need to look at and decide what, if anything, needs to be done. I'd like to attack some of this with checkstyle, etc to improve overall code & javadoc quality and style conformance, etc.
OK.
2. Import task
I think this needs more testing and work. I currently have a disabled testcase that shows one problem. I think we have had some discussions on the meaning of basedirs for imported stuff without any clear resolution.
I am using this in a project as of last week. It could be very powerful, if only I understood its rules. Which means
-hard use to discover its quirks
-tuning to fix things
-documentation
Maybe the basedir choice should be an option at <import> time.
3. Antlibs
I'm not sure where this is up to. AddType has gone in but other bits are still to be done. I think once we have a workable antlib, we need to look at the packaging of the Ant optional tasks. I'd like to have polymorphism as part of all this.
4. xdocs proposal & manual generation
I'm not sure if this is still at the proposal stage or ready for primetime. I think we probably won't progress unless we agree that this is the way to generate the Ant manual and commit to supporting it as part of the standard build process. If it is the way to go, I'd like to hurry it along.
Right now the setproxy doco is generated and looks a bit different from the hand carved manual pages. We probably want a consistent look in the manual and perhaps even a similar look to the rest of the Ant site. Also I want to have some PDF generation going.
I have used xdocs for a couple more tasks. And all the axis tasks in the axis distro.
Personally I think machine-generated is the right approach, but we need to transfer the rules about optional attributes into the xdocs, then sit down and migrate all the current docs into xdocs form.
Also, is xdocs currently running?
5. lcp.bat replacement
Yes, I have this in mind for a while and will get something done soon on this next. This will be necessary for Windows operation with the new jar arrangement.
+1
6. New Tasks and new features.
I've got some things I want to add to <parallel> to support timeouts, errors, etc plus the capability to have daemon threads. I've thought about whether <macrodef> could be done and would be a good idea. It would provide a way of composing tasks into larger tasks. Peter has mentioned a system to provide task default attribute settings for standard tasks. I've thought about an <antschema> as a companion to <antstructure>, potentially supporting the polymorphic stuff.
I am very minded to bring <try>/<catch> into the core. Also I want to round off .NET with an ildasm; my current COM to .NET build is tlbimport/ildasm/search and replace/ilasm to fix up tlbimports inability to handle arrays.
7. Bug reduction.
I'd like to go through the bugs like a dose of salts. I'd like to see all committers getting stuck into the backlog. The things that aren't going to be done or are unlikely in the forseeable future (e.g. http://nagoya.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=3807) could go, IMHO. Voting for bugs will help us to prioritise them.
Agreed, and that is something I have to find time for. Outstanding patches are something I feel bad about, as people have done the code, we just need to commit and test it.
Also, I am +1 with Stefan's idea on an ant1.5.4, just for javah.
-steve
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