RE: Determine target's name

[Paul Cody <pa...@lucida.com>]

Anyhooooooo....

Open source developers feed off the art of programming, the ego of having
thousands of people running your code, and the excitement that people take
in their code (such as thank yous && feature requests (note the conditional
AND operator)).  I've not contributed anything myself, but it would be my
opinion from the outside that Ant is long past the "implement everything
that people ask for, cuz gee, that's so cool that somebody asked for it!".
So, if you have a feature request, be positive about it.  If you don't get a
positive response, your were either unsuccessful in communicating your idea,
or your idea was not considered useful.  Most developers would agree that
the simpler something is, the better, so naturally feature additions should
be challenged on their worth.  As for the specific idea in question, I
happen to agree with you:  the ant.file is part of the runtime context, it
seems natural to be able to access the name of the currently running target
as well.  But I also understand the caution:  ant is (mostly) a
declarative/functional tool, adding contextual information like this sets a
postentially dangerous precedent in that moves it more towards an iterative
programming model that would evolve into it's own scripting language.
Whether this is bad or good is up to debate.  Anyway, code speaks louder
than words, so the best thing is just go try it for yourself and maybe
contribute back to the project.  It can probably be implemented in a matter
of minutes.

Paul

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Diane Holt [mailto:holtdl@yahoo.com]
> Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2002 2:24 PM
> To: Ant Users List
> Cc: drew@eblox.com
> Subject: Re: Determine target's name
> 
> 
> --- Drew Davidson <dr...@eblox.com> wrote:
> > I don't believe the rest of the post was rude, only that 
> one comment,
> > and that was a joke (should have put :-) perhaps).
> 
> I doubt a smiley would've done much to change it from being 
> exactly what
> it was: a snide little swipe at us because we don't want to 
> just add (and
> then have to maintain) everything people ask for. Working on 
> this takes
> *time* -- whether you choose to acknowledge that or not. And you're
> benefitting from that time we choose to spend on it -- 
> whether you choose
> to acknowledge *that* or not -- so trying to get us to 
> accommodate your
> request by ranting that we're all lame seems a bit counterproductive,
> don't you think?
> 
> > The rest is a rational explanation of what I feel is going 
> on with ant
> > development.
> 
> Oh yes? Here's some of the juicier stuff from your "rational 
> explanation":
> ...a lame excuse
> ...chaotic unorganized piles of junk
> ..."hack in" stuff
> ...a toy
> ...dive in and start hacking
> ...if you don't have time to do it right
> ...the committers (and their shills)
> ...with a "shut up" flair
> 
> > > Recommendation: Recall the honey/vinegar adage and resubmit your
> > > proposal a bit more graciously. 
> >
> > This proposal for determining target at runtime occurs 
> extremely often
> > on the list and it shot down every time for what I see is no good
> > reason; that is the frustration that I feel.
> 
> So work your frustration out in some more positive way instead of
> directing it at us -- then try to present an -actual- 
> rational proposal.
> 
> > You are now entering a new excuse: we don't have the time to do it
> > right, so be grateful for what you are getting and shut up with
> > your annoying comments.
> 
> How in the world do you manage to get "shut up" from "resubmit your
> proposal"?
> 
> > I am writing a templating preprocessor that will give me the
> > functionality that I need that will output Ant XML and run 
> that for the
> > build.  I am also able to determine the build target at runtime :-)
> 
> Excellent -- then we've successfully provided you with a 
> tool, and not a
> "toy", that allows you to do what you need to.
> 
> Diane
> 
> =====
> (holtdl@yahoo.com)
> 
> 
> 
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