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Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 21:25:42 -0800 (PST)
From: Bill Brooks <wbrooks@lug.ee.calpoly.edu>
To: ant-dev@jakarta.apache.org
Subject: Re: [ANN] Collecting requirements for Ant2
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Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.10.10103202112480.22776-100000@lug.calpoly.edu>
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What I'd like to see in Ant 2.0 is a much more thought out declarative
language for the XML build control files that stays firmly within the non
procedural programming paradigm.

With this, we need extensive documentation and examples so that people
with little programming background understand why build.xml files work the
way they do with the syntax they have. 

See Tim Berners-Lee's essay on "The principle of least power".

Other than the obious advantages, this would have three good side effects. 

1. Obviate the need for continually-asked for, half-baked, control
   stuctures.
2. Prevent Ant from becoming a monstrosity of a scripting language like
   perl 
3. Lower the traffic on ant-user and ant-dev initiated by people who think
   that all languages must be somehow procedural in order to be useful and
   that all those who think otherwise are hopeless purists who
   must be worked around by hosting external Ant tasks on SourceForge. 

Bill