Jason van Zyl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote on 03/05/2004 01:03:57 PM:
> On Sun, 2004-05-02 at 21:10, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> > Given the vast amount of ant build scripts out there, there must be a
few.
>
> Yes, but that's a result of there never being a choice. If someone had
> made a build tool using something like beanshell during the time ant was
> becoming popular I do wonder what the population of XML build files
> would be. Maybe a lot, maybe not. I'm used to them now as I've been
> exposed to them for quite a while like most but it doesn't mean they are
> optimal or ideal.
Another thing to consider is the IO model for Ant is a lot less verbose
than plain Java.
Groovy is a step ahead in this regard, but still standard Java is very
verbose and a large effort compared to a build snippet to do copies,
moves, xml transforms on multiple files.
Compare:
-----ant approach----
<project>
<delete dir="${maven.build.dir}"/>
</project>
ant
-----ant approach----
with
----- java approach----
public class Clean {
public static void main(String[] args)
{
new java.io.File(args[0]).delete();
}
}
javac Clean.java
java Clean target
-----java approach----
----- windows shell approach----
rmdir target /q /s
----- windows shell approach----
And the java approach doesn't handle simple stuff like deleting non-empty
directories.
The real issue is a lack of decent libraries for doing typical build
tasks. If java-based plugins are to be a success, we'll need to beef up
the existing libraries to handle common tasks.
--
dIon Gillard, Multitask Consulting
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