I agree that the magic should be explained. Assaf is the one to ask on this count, since I don't personally have a clue how it works. I do know that it is quite deterministic, just clever in that determinism. :-)
Daniel On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 3:49 PM, Martin Grotzke < martin.grot...@javakaffee.de> wrote: > On Wed, 2009-07-29 at 12:35 -0500, Daniel Spiewak wrote: > > > > > > forgive my ignorance, but how exactly does buildr do that? i can see > that > > > you can download a file from a given url, but where is the code that > digs > > > into a zip to extract a jar from it? > > > > > > Don't ask me how Buildr does it, but somehow... Probably just on the > > strength of Assaf's brilliance. The code shown in the > quick_start.textile > > will download DBPool and auto-extract the JAR from the zipfile, > installing > > it into the local repository. I actually copy/pasted that code from a > > buildfile I have used in the past which used exactly that functionality. > It > > really works. > I asume most of the ant users (except for those that are using ivy) are > used to store jars locally in some lib/ directory, and then keep a list > of compile-libs and run-libs in the build.xml. For those kind of people > it's hard to trust the "magic" (hell?) of maven dependencies, and also > to depend on the fact, that you have connectivity. Additionally, they > want to make sure that no SNAPSHOTS are used, as otherwise there's the > possibility of different versions of jars on different build/developer > machines. All this throws in a lot of indefinite things a successful > build depends on. > If then the build tool itself additionally does things that are not > really deterministic (are they?), the build feels even more magically > and less trustworthy. That's the reason why I would not propagate this > feature in the quickstart, or at least it should be clear that it is > definitely deterministic and no magic at all. > > I think no one wants to depend on magic for a successful build, and from > my experience that's where a lot of maven critics comes from. A simple, > comprehensible and reproducable build is the goal IMHO. > > So, again, I'd vote for mentioning that buildr can do lots of stuff and > link to appropriate places. > > Cheers, > Martin > > > PS. if you definitively want to mention that buildr can download and > extract artifacts, what about a sentence in the tip like "and if you > want, buildr can even download a zip file and extract the artifact for > you - less work for you! (See magic explanation <link>here</link>)"? > > > > > > > Daniel >
