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Posted to dev@ant.apache.org by Timo Koepke <uk...@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de> on 2000/03/30 23:48:41 UTC
I want to become an Ant developer
Hi there,
my name is Timo, and I want to become an Ant developer.
My experience with computers, programming, languages and
software developement goes very deep (IMO). A tool like
Ant was *exactly* what I was looking for, and I greatly
appreciate your work.
However, some improvements to Ant could be made:
-(logical) include mechanism. That is, inherit targets from
parent projects and execute them, rather than just inheriting
project properties.
-conditional execution of targets (based on values of properties)
-computed property values (the syntax classpath="${classpath}"
is a good starting point)
-changing the current directory on invoking sub-Ants (for example,
to prevent clobbering of output files given to the Exec task)
-support for additional languages like scheme inside Ant
(could use Kawa, me myself wrote a properly tail recursive,
full call/cc capable scheme compiler [in Java/JavaCC])
-improvements to the DirectoryScanner to fully support regular
expressions
-template processor (that is, automated generation of build.xml files
from
an even higher level of abstraction, automatic detection of module
subdirectories etc.)
-deduction of tasks based on file types (not just .java => .class,
but also .jjt => .jj, .jj => .java, .pizza => .java, and so on)
-perhaps validation of build.xml files
best regards,
Timo
Re: I want to become an Ant developer
Posted by Stefano Mazzocchi <st...@apache.org>.
Stefan Bodewig wrote:
>
> >>>>> "SB" == Stefan Bodewig <bo...@bost.de> writes:
>
> SB> If I did, please apologize.
>
> Take my apologize I meant - of course.
:)
don't worry, dude. No offense taken.
I'm a little frustrated and I think you can tell... well, hopefully it
will get better soon...
--
Stefano Mazzocchi One must still have chaos in oneself to be
able to give birth to a dancing star.
<st...@apache.org> Friedrich Nietzsche
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Missed us in Orlando? Make it up with ApacheCON Europe in London!
------------------------- http://ApacheCon.Com ---------------------
Re: I want to become an Ant developer
Posted by Stefan Bodewig <bo...@bost.de>.
>>>>> "SB" == Stefan Bodewig <bo...@bost.de> writes:
SB> If I did, please apologize.
Take my apologize I meant - of course.
Re: I want to become an Ant developer
Posted by Stefan Bodewig <bo...@bost.de>.
>>>>> "SM" == Stefano Mazzocchi <st...@apache.org> writes:
SM> maybe I just need to unsubscribe from this project... I'm not
SM> being of any help.
Sorry Stefano, didn't want to offend you. If I did, please apologize.
Stefan
RE: I want to become an Ant developer
Posted by Conor MacNeill <co...@ebinteractive.com.au>.
>
> Again, sorry... I overreacted...
>
> maybe I just need to unsubscribe from this project... I'm not being of
> any help.
>
-1 :-)
Re: I want to become an Ant developer
Posted by James Duncan Davidson <ja...@eng.sun.com>.
> maybe I just need to unsubscribe from this project... I'm not being of
> any help.
You and me both. Even though I started this, and have threatened to jump
back in the fold, I've been too damn busy to code anything. :( And it's not
going to change for a while.
.duncan
Re: I want to become an Ant developer
Posted by Stefano Mazzocchi <st...@apache.org>.
Stefan Bodewig wrote:
> >> my name is Timo, and I want to become an Ant developer.
>
> SM> <IMHO>not a great start: "want to become" sounds like an
> SM> order.</IMHO>
>
> Sorry, but IMHO Timo didn't sound demanding in any way.
>
> Maybe it is because I'm german too and would translate "want to
> become" into german as "möchte werden" which is far more like "would
> like to be".
Again, sorry... I overreacted...
maybe I just need to unsubscribe from this project... I'm not being of
any help.
> SM> oh god... do we really need this? I still don't like the ability
> SM> to include scripting... are we going to add every possible
> SM> programming language inside build files?
>
> Of course one can argue about it. It is always possible to call
> scripts in any language via the Exec task.
>
> I just suppose it's more convenient to have specialized - and don't
> forget _optional_ - tasks for common languages.
>
> >From your reaction I guess this one has been discussed over and over
> again in the past.
Unfortunately, you're right.
--
Stefano Mazzocchi One must still have chaos in oneself to be
able to give birth to a dancing star.
<st...@apache.org> Friedrich Nietzsche
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Missed us in Orlando? Make it up with ApacheCON Europe in London!
------------------------- http://ApacheCon.Com ---------------------
Re: I want to become an Ant developer
Posted by Stefan Bodewig <bo...@bost.de>.
>>>>> "SM" == Stefano Mazzocchi <st...@apache.org> writes:
SM> Timo Koepke wrote:
>> my name is Timo, and I want to become an Ant developer.
SM> <IMHO>not a great start: "want to become" sounds like an
SM> order.</IMHO>
Sorry, but IMHO Timo didn't sound demanding in any way.
Maybe it is because I'm german too and would translate "want to
become" into german as "möchte werden" which is far more like "would
like to be".
>> -computed property values (the syntax classpath="${classpath}" is
>> a good starting point)
SM> what do you mean?
Probably some kind of functional extension along the line of
"${prop1}.equals(${prop2})" or similar.
Sam has convinced me that making Ant yet another programming language
is not the right thing to do - although I could see benefits from such
an extension.
>> -changing the current directory on invoking sub-Ants (for example,
>> to prevent clobbering of output files given to the Exec task)
SM> hmmmm, one might want all the output in the same directory. -0 to
SM> this
So maybe make it an option?
>> -support for additional languages like scheme inside Ant (could
Timo, take a look at the Script task in the optional package. Maybe
you could make your personal scheme compiler BSF supported?
Then again Ant already supports execution of scripts via this task -
why not add execution of another language as well.
SM> oh god... do we really need this? I still don't like the ability
SM> to include scripting... are we going to add every possible
SM> programming language inside build files?
Of course one can argue about it. It is always possible to call
scripts in any language via the Exec task.
I just suppose it's more convenient to have specialized - and don't
forget _optional_ - tasks for common languages.
Re: I want to become an Ant developer
Posted by James Duncan Davidson <ja...@eng.sun.com>.
> This is interesting. I don't know perfect this is. +0. You would
> always have to ship a .dtd or xsd with your Ant and point to it. My
> build.xml files only get tweaked about once a month so I don't think
> validation should be a major priority.
Actually, there is no way to make a static DTD for ant. The ability to
define tasks on the fly using <taskdef...> ensures that.
.duncan
Re: I want to become an Ant developer
Posted by "Kevin A. Burton" <bu...@relativity.yi.org>.
Stefano Mazzocchi wrote:
<snip>
> > -perhaps validation of build.xml files
>
> You mean creating a DTD/Xschema for Ant? Well, I don't have anything
> against this, but it needs _costant_ update and it's very easy to make
> it fall behind.
>
> But I agree that validation is a good thing.
This is interesting. I don't know perfect this is. +0. You would
always have to ship a .dtd or xsd with your Ant and point to it. My
build.xml files only get tweaked about once a month so I don't think
validation should be a major priority.
Kevin
--
Kevin A Burton (burton@apache.org)
http://relativity.yi.org
Message to SUN: "Please Open Source Java!"
"For evil to win is for good men to do nothing."
Re: I want to become an Ant developer
Posted by Michel CASABIANCA <ca...@sdv.fr>.
Hi
Arkaitz Bitorika <ab...@tirin.openworld.co.uk> writes:
> Does any one know which is the best way/editor/emacs mode/vi mode to write
> xml files such as the ant buildfiles? Does PSGML for emacs work well if
> there is no dtd?
I use Emacs + PSGML to write my build.xml files. The bad news is that
Emacs doesn't help much if you don't have a DTD (you have to type in
each tag by hand).
The good news is that you can make a DTD for build files. I have done
one that you can download on my page :
http://www.sdv.fr/pages/casa/html/ant-dtd.en.html
I have parsed jakarta projects build files and this DTD works fine
(except for watchdog build.xml that uses a deprecated construct I
think).
--
+---------------------------+--------------------------------+
| Michel CASABIANCA | http://www.sdv.fr/pages/casa |
| mailto:casa@sdv.fr | Articles sur Java et XML |
| Développement Java et XML | Applications et Applets de Jeu |
+---------------------------+--------------------------------+
Re: I want to become an Ant developer
Posted by Arkaitz Bitorika <ab...@tirin.openworld.co.uk>.
Does any one know which is the best way/editor/emacs mode/vi mode to write
xml files such as the ant buildfiles? Does PSGML for emacs work well if
there is no dtd?
Cheers,
Arkaitz
On Mon, 3 Apr 2000, Stefano Mazzocchi wrote:
> The best XML editor around is, by far, XMetaL (www.xmetal.com)... but
> way too expensive for what gives you, IMVHO.
>
> --
> Stefano Mazzocchi One must still have chaos in oneself to be
> able to give birth to a dancing star.
> <st...@apache.org> Friedrich Nietzsche
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> Missed us in Orlando? Make it up with ApacheCON Europe in London!
> ------------------------- http://ApacheCon.Com ---------------------
>
>
Re: More meaningfull parser errors (was Re: I want to become an Ant developer)
Posted by Stefan Bodewig <bo...@bost.de>.
>>>>> "MC" == Michel CASABIANCA <ca...@sdv.fr> writes:
MC> I don't agree : according to my experience, error messages from
MC> ProjectX are better. But there is a localization bug that
MC> produces "raw error codes" such as com.sun.xml.parser/P-031.
Thanks. I always knew I would regret installing a "german" Linux
distribution 8^). Indeed unsetting LC_ALL does the trick.
Stefan
Re: More meaningfull parser errors (was Re: I want to become an Ant developer)
Posted by Michel CASABIANCA <ca...@sdv.fr>.
Hi
Stefan Bodewig <bo...@bost.de> writes:
> SM> yes, xerces is much better at error codes than projectX, for what
> SM> I've seen, but maybe it's a problem with Ant that doesn't print
> SM> that information passed on the SAXExceptions...
>
> No, I don't think so. I've downloaded Xerces, hacked together an
> org.apache.tools.ant.Parser implementation for it (anybody
> interested?) and tried the following part (surrounded by a valid
> build file):
>
> <javac srcdir="${src.dir}"
> destdir="${build.classes}"
> classpath="${classpath}"
> <!-- debug="on" -->
> deprecation="on"
> optimize="on" >
>
> The result using projectX
>
> BUILD CONFIG ERROR: Can't open config file: buildfail.xml due to:
> org.xml.sax.SAXParseException: com.sun.xml.parser/P-031 <
>
> followed by a stack trace with no new information. I've also dumped
> out the original stack trace of the SAXParseException, dind't really
> help much.
>
> The result using Xerces
>
> BUILD CONFIG ERROR: Can't open config file: buildfail.xml due to: org.xml.sax.SAXParseException: Element type "javac" must be followed by either attribute specifications, ">" or "/>".
>
> and the stack trace.
>
> So yes switching parser does help indeed.
I don't agree : according to my experience, error messages from
ProjectX are better. But there is a localization bug that produces
"raw error codes" such as com.sun.xml.parser/P-031.
I am french and have the same problem. The parser tries to apply
your local but fails because it doesn't have German messages. I
have writen a patch, see my home page :
http://www.sdv.fr/pages/casa/html/projectx.html
Sorry, it's in french (a localization bug ;o). To address this,
you can edit com/sun/xml/parser/Parser.java file :
replace :
if (locale == null)
locale = Locale.getDefault ();
with :
if (locale == null) {
locale = Locale.getDefault ();
// casa: test if default locale is supported
if(!messages.isLocaleSupported (locale.toString ()))
locale = new Locale("en","US");
}
If locale is not supported, I apply en_US. So you will have
english messages instead of code. You can also add localized
messages in property files (I've done it for french, see my
page).
If you apply that patch, parsing your buggy code would
produce :
Attribute names must not start with "<" characters.
Does anybody from Sun reads this :o)
--
+---------------------------+--------------------------------+
| Michel CASABIANCA | http://www.sdv.fr/pages/casa |
| mailto:casa@sdv.fr | Articles sur Java et XML |
| Développement Java et XML | Applications et Applets de Jeu |
+---------------------------+--------------------------------+
Re: More meaningfull parser errors (was Re: I want to become an Ant
developer)
Posted by Pierpaolo Fumagalli <pi...@apache.org>.
James Duncan Davidson wrote:
>
> > So +1 to make Xerces the default browser... BTW, ProjectX is now donated
> > to the ASF so to me it makes perfect sense since it will be integrated
> > into Xerces anyway :)
>
> Hmmm... Just use Jaxp. Pick up whatever is intalled.
I proposed to modify ANT to use it... But noone seemed to care :( :(
Pier
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
pier: stable structure erected over water to allow docking of seacraft
<ma...@betaversion.org> <http://www.betaversion.org/~pier/>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Re: More meaningfull parser errors (was Re: I want to become an Ant developer)
Posted by James Duncan Davidson <ja...@eng.sun.com>.
> So +1 to make Xerces the default browser... BTW, ProjectX is now donated
> to the ASF so to me it makes perfect sense since it will be integrated
> into Xerces anyway :)
Hmmm... Just use Jaxp. Pick up whatever is intalled.
.duncan
Re: More meaningfull parser errors (was Re: I want to become an Ant
developer)
Posted by Stefano Mazzocchi <st...@apache.org>.
Stefan Bodewig wrote:
>
> >>>>> "SM" == Stefano Mazzocchi <st...@apache.org> writes:
>
> SM> Stefan Bodewig wrote:
>
> >> checking whether buld.xml is at least well formed and
> >> providing better error messages would be helpfull.
>
> SM> +1, this is already in the todo list
>
> >> Maybe Xerces would provide more usable error messages and thus >>
> >> just switching the parser would help?
>
> SM> yes, xerces is much better at error codes than projectX, for what
> SM> I've seen, but maybe it's a problem with Ant that doesn't print
> SM> that information passed on the SAXExceptions...
>
> No, I don't think so. I've downloaded Xerces, hacked together an
> org.apache.tools.ant.Parser implementation for it (anybody
> interested?) and tried the following part (surrounded by a valid
> build file):
>
> <javac srcdir="${src.dir}"
> destdir="${build.classes}"
> classpath="${classpath}"
> <!-- debug="on" -->
> deprecation="on"
> optimize="on" >
>
> The result using projectX
>
> BUILD CONFIG ERROR: Can't open config file: buildfail.xml due to:
> org.xml.sax.SAXParseException: com.sun.xml.parser/P-031 <
>
> followed by a stack trace with no new information. I've also dumped
> out the original stack trace of the SAXParseException, dind't really
> help much.
>
> The result using Xerces
>
> BUILD CONFIG ERROR: Can't open config file: buildfail.xml due to: org.xml.sax.SAXParseException: Element type "javac" must be followed by either attribute specifications, ">" or "/>".
>
> and the stack trace.
>
> So yes switching parser does help indeed.
Great!
So +1 to make Xerces the default browser... BTW, ProjectX is now donated
to the ASF so to me it makes perfect sense since it will be integrated
into Xerces anyway :)
--
Stefano Mazzocchi One must still have chaos in oneself to be
able to give birth to a dancing star.
<st...@apache.org> Friedrich Nietzsche
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Missed us in Orlando? Make it up with ApacheCON Europe in London!
------------------------- http://ApacheCon.Com ---------------------
Re: More meaningfull parser errors (was Re: I want to become an Ant developer)
Posted by Rajiv Mordani <Ra...@eng.sun.com>.
This is because you are probably running in a different locale other than
en. In that case you need to provide a Messages_<lang>.properties for the
parser to use.
- Rajiv
--
:wq
On 4 Apr 2000, Stefan Bodewig wrote:
> >>>>> "SM" == Stefano Mazzocchi <st...@apache.org> writes:
>
> SM> Stefan Bodewig wrote:
>
> >> checking whether buld.xml is at least well formed and
> >> providing better error messages would be helpfull.
>
> SM> +1, this is already in the todo list
>
> >> Maybe Xerces would provide more usable error messages and thus >>
> >> just switching the parser would help?
>
> SM> yes, xerces is much better at error codes than projectX, for what
> SM> I've seen, but maybe it's a problem with Ant that doesn't print
> SM> that information passed on the SAXExceptions...
>
> No, I don't think so. I've downloaded Xerces, hacked together an
> org.apache.tools.ant.Parser implementation for it (anybody
> interested?) and tried the following part (surrounded by a valid
> build file):
>
> <javac srcdir="${src.dir}"
> destdir="${build.classes}"
> classpath="${classpath}"
> <!-- debug="on" -->
> deprecation="on"
> optimize="on" >
>
> The result using projectX
>
> BUILD CONFIG ERROR: Can't open config file: buildfail.xml due to:
> org.xml.sax.SAXParseException: com.sun.xml.parser/P-031 <
>
> followed by a stack trace with no new information. I've also dumped
> out the original stack trace of the SAXParseException, dind't really
> help much.
>
> The result using Xerces
>
> BUILD CONFIG ERROR: Can't open config file: buildfail.xml due to: org.xml.sax.SAXParseException: Element type "javac" must be followed by either attribute specifications, ">" or "/>".
>
> and the stack trace.
>
> So yes switching parser does help indeed.
>
> Stefan
>
More meaningfull parser errors (was Re: I want to become an Ant developer)
Posted by Stefan Bodewig <bo...@bost.de>.
>>>>> "SM" == Stefano Mazzocchi <st...@apache.org> writes:
SM> Stefan Bodewig wrote:
>> checking whether buld.xml is at least well formed and
>> providing better error messages would be helpfull.
SM> +1, this is already in the todo list
>> Maybe Xerces would provide more usable error messages and thus >>
>> just switching the parser would help?
SM> yes, xerces is much better at error codes than projectX, for what
SM> I've seen, but maybe it's a problem with Ant that doesn't print
SM> that information passed on the SAXExceptions...
No, I don't think so. I've downloaded Xerces, hacked together an
org.apache.tools.ant.Parser implementation for it (anybody
interested?) and tried the following part (surrounded by a valid
build file):
<javac srcdir="${src.dir}"
destdir="${build.classes}"
classpath="${classpath}"
<!-- debug="on" -->
deprecation="on"
optimize="on" >
The result using projectX
BUILD CONFIG ERROR: Can't open config file: buildfail.xml due to:
org.xml.sax.SAXParseException: com.sun.xml.parser/P-031 <
followed by a stack trace with no new information. I've also dumped
out the original stack trace of the SAXParseException, dind't really
help much.
The result using Xerces
BUILD CONFIG ERROR: Can't open config file: buildfail.xml due to: org.xml.sax.SAXParseException: Element type "javac" must be followed by either attribute specifications, ">" or "/>".
and the stack trace.
So yes switching parser does help indeed.
Stefan
Re: I want to become an Ant developer
Posted by Stefano Mazzocchi <st...@apache.org>.
Stefan Bodewig wrote:
>
> >>>>> "SM" == Stefano Mazzocchi <st...@apache.org> writes:
>
> SM> Stefan Bodewig wrote
>
> >> While I think full validation is of low priority checking whether
> >> buld.xml is at least well formed and providing better error
> >> messages would be helpfull.
>
> SM> +1, this is already in the todo list
>
> Maybe Xerces would provide more usable error messages and thus just
> switching the parser would help? I know you are involved with
> xml.apache.org projects so maybe you could comment on this?
yes, xerces is much better at error codes than projectX, for what I've
seen, but maybe it's a problem with Ant that doesn't print that
information passed on the SAXExceptions...
> >> It took me a rather long time to see that the parser shipped with
> >> Ant chokes on comments inside elements
> >>
> >> nsgmls didn't complain at all
>
> SM> nsgmls is not exactly the bext xml editor available...
>
> OK, http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-xml-19980210#sec-comments quite
> clearly says nsgmls was wrong.
>
> It (nsgmls) was the one I had on my disk as I'm using DocBook - the
> SGML version - to document my code (design documents, user manuals all
> the boring stuff you're forced to do).
>
> SM> unfortunately, it's one of the best you get for free
>
> Other recommendations?
The best XML editor around is, by far, XMetaL (www.xmetal.com)... but
way too expensive for what gives you, IMVHO.
--
Stefano Mazzocchi One must still have chaos in oneself to be
able to give birth to a dancing star.
<st...@apache.org> Friedrich Nietzsche
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Missed us in Orlando? Make it up with ApacheCON Europe in London!
------------------------- http://ApacheCon.Com ---------------------
Re: I want to become an Ant developer
Posted by Stefan Bodewig <bo...@bost.de>.
>>>>> "SM" == Stefano Mazzocchi <st...@apache.org> writes:
SM> Stefan Bodewig wrote
>> While I think full validation is of low priority checking whether
>> buld.xml is at least well formed and providing better error
>> messages would be helpfull.
SM> +1, this is already in the todo list
Maybe Xerces would provide more usable error messages and thus just
switching the parser would help? I know you are involved with
xml.apache.org projects so maybe you could comment on this?
>> It took me a rather long time to see that the parser shipped with
>> Ant chokes on comments inside elements
>>
>> nsgmls didn't complain at all
SM> nsgmls is not exactly the bext xml editor available...
OK, http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-xml-19980210#sec-comments quite
clearly says nsgmls was wrong.
It (nsgmls) was the one I had on my disk as I'm using DocBook - the
SGML version - to document my code (design documents, user manuals all
the boring stuff you're forced to do).
SM> unfortunately, it's one of the best you get for free
Other recommendations?
Stefan
Re: I want to become an Ant developer
Posted by Stefano Mazzocchi <st...@apache.org>.
Stefan Bodewig wrote:
> SM> But I agree that validation is a good thing.
>
> Yes, especially since we have to live with rather useless
> SAXExceptions in case of syntactic errors.
>
> While I think full validation is of low priority checking whether
> buld.xml is at least well formed and providing better error messages
> would be helpfull.
+1, this is already in the todo list, if I remember correctly... but
nobody is bored enough to do it :)
> It took me a rather long time to see that the parser shipped with Ant
> chokes on comments inside elements like
>
> <javac ...
> <!-- deprecation="on" -->
> />
>
> nsgmls didn't complain at all and I'm not sure who is right here, but
> the provided parser exception sure didn't help at all.
nsgmls is not exactly the bext xml editor available... unfortunately,
it's one of the best you get for free... and this is kind of sad :(
--
Stefano Mazzocchi One must still have chaos in oneself to be
able to give birth to a dancing star.
<st...@apache.org> Friedrich Nietzsche
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Missed us in Orlando? Make it up with ApacheCON Europe in London!
------------------------- http://ApacheCon.Com ---------------------
Re: I want to become an Ant developer
Posted by Stefan Bodewig <bo...@bost.de>.
>>>>> "SM" == Stefano Mazzocchi <st...@apache.org> writes:
SM> Timo Koepke wrote:
>> -perhaps validation of build.xml files
SM> You mean creating a DTD/Xschema for Ant?
Which would only work for build.xml files that don't use taskdefs. Or
the one putting the taskdef into it would be responsible for editing
his/her own DTD/Xschema.
SM> But I agree that validation is a good thing.
Yes, especially since we have to live with rather useless
SAXExceptions in case of syntactic errors.
While I think full validation is of low priority checking whether
buld.xml is at least well formed and providing better error messages
would be helpfull.
It took me a rather long time to see that the parser shipped with Ant
chokes on comments inside elements like
<javac ...
<!-- deprecation="on" -->
/>
nsgmls didn't complain at all and I'm not sure who is right here, but
the provided parser exception sure didn't help at all.
Stefan
Re: I want to become an Ant developer
Posted by Stefano Mazzocchi <st...@apache.org>.
Edwin Park wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> > > -conditional execution of targets (based on values of properties)
> >
> > already present
>
> Is this true? As far as I know, Ant allows conditional execution of
> targets only based on the existence or nonexistence of properties, not on
> their values.
Correct, sorry I was wrong.
> > > Hi there,
> > >
> > > my name is Timo, and I want to become an Ant developer.
> >
> > <IMHO>not a great start: "want to become" sounds like an order.</IMHO>
>
> Just one other thing, which is meant to be constructive criticism - I hope
> that you will receive it as such.
>
> Stefano, I was frankly rather shocked at the tone of your response. To
> me, "want to become" sounds like a motivated and committed potential
> contributor who should be encouraged and guided, not shut down.
>
> The strength of open source is derived from its community, and yes, it can
> also be a weakness because you are bound to run across people with
> different strongly held beliefs, but that just means we need to make the
> extra effort to listen carefully and communicate, lest we miss some
> valuable insights or opportunities that come along.
Correct again... sorry people, it's just a bad period for me :/
--
Stefano Mazzocchi One must still have chaos in oneself to be
able to give birth to a dancing star.
<st...@apache.org> Friedrich Nietzsche
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Missed us in Orlando? Make it up with ApacheCON Europe in London!
------------------------- http://ApacheCon.Com ---------------------
Re: I want to become an Ant developer
Posted by Edwin Park <es...@parkplace.dhs.org>.
Hi,
> > -conditional execution of targets (based on values of properties)
>
> already present
Is this true? As far as I know, Ant allows conditional execution of
targets only based on the existence or nonexistence of properties, not on
their values.
> > Hi there,
> >
> > my name is Timo, and I want to become an Ant developer.
>
> <IMHO>not a great start: "want to become" sounds like an order.</IMHO>
Just one other thing, which is meant to be constructive criticism - I hope
that you will receive it as such.
Stefano, I was frankly rather shocked at the tone of your response. To
me, "want to become" sounds like a motivated and committed potential
contributor who should be encouraged and guided, not shut down.
The strength of open source is derived from its community, and yes, it can
also be a weakness because you are bound to run across people with
different strongly held beliefs, but that just means we need to make the
extra effort to listen carefully and communicate, lest we miss some
valuable insights or opportunities that come along.
Edwin
Re: I want to become an Ant developer
Posted by Stefano Mazzocchi <st...@apache.org>.
Timo Koepke wrote:
>
> Hi there,
>
> my name is Timo, and I want to become an Ant developer.
<IMHO>not a great start: "want to become" sounds like an order.</IMHO>
> My experience with computers, programming, languages and
> software developement goes very deep (IMO). A tool like
> Ant was *exactly* what I was looking for, and I greatly
> appreciate your work.
> However, some improvements to Ant could be made:
>
> -(logical) include mechanism. That is, inherit targets from
> parent projects and execute them, rather than just inheriting
> project properties.
-1
already present thru the use of external entities. In the future, the
parser will support XInclude and you'll get it for free from the XML
world.
> -conditional execution of targets (based on values of properties)
already present
> -computed property values (the syntax classpath="${classpath}"
> is a good starting point)
what do you mean?
> -changing the current directory on invoking sub-Ants (for example,
> to prevent clobbering of output files given to the Exec task)
hmmmm, one might want all the output in the same directory. -0 to this
> -support for additional languages like scheme inside Ant
> (could use Kawa, me myself wrote a properly tail recursive,
> full call/cc capable scheme compiler [in Java/JavaCC])
oh god... do we really need this? I still don't like the ability to
include scripting... are we going to add every possible programming
language inside build files?
Remember this: make started small and beautiful. It became a monster
after people wanted to add this and that and go from 1 to n in every
possible circumstance. I call this "flexibility syndrome" and it's the
most dangerous anti-pattern in software development I know.
> -improvements to the DirectoryScanner to fully support regular
> expressions
Hmmmm, I still don't like the idea of regexp support in Ant. My personal
opinion and experience? if you need regexp power to build java programs,
there is something wrong with your file structure.
> -template processor (that is, automated generation of build.xml files
> from
> an even higher level of abstraction, automatic detection of module
> subdirectories etc.)
-1
well built XML files are _portable_ from project to project with just a
few lines of changes. I was able to compile JServ with my Cocoon
build.xml file changing two lines: where the source files were and what
packages to compile.
> -deduction of tasks based on file types (not just .java => .class,
> but also .jjt => .jj, .jj => .java, .pizza => .java, and so on)
+0 for this
> -perhaps validation of build.xml files
You mean creating a DTD/Xschema for Ant? Well, I don't have anything
against this, but it needs _costant_ update and it's very easy to make
it fall behind.
But I agree that validation is a good thing.
--
Stefano Mazzocchi One must still have chaos in oneself to be
able to give birth to a dancing star.
<st...@apache.org> Friedrich Nietzsche
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