Mailing-List: contact ant-dev-help@jakarta.apache.org; run by ezmlm
Precedence: bulk
Reply-To: ant-dev@jakarta.apache.org
Message-Id: <3.0.6.32.20010607005834.008a9390@mail.alphalink.com.au>
Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2001 00:58:34 +1000
To: ant-dev@jakarta.apache.org
From: Peter Donald <donaldp@apache.org>
Subject: Re: Configure->Template->Build
Cc: ant-dev@jakarta.apache.org
In-Reply-To: <m31yox1zio.fsf@bodewig.bost.de>
References: <20010606132353.29354.qmail@web9307.mail.yahoo.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

At 03:58 PM 6/6/01 +0200, Stefan Bodewig wrote:
>Roger Vaughn <rogervaughn@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> To my way of thinking, the discussion should not center around
>> whether templates (dynamic or static) are "the right thing to do",
>> but rather around how they impact, positively or negatively, the Ant
>> core and therefore the structure and behavior of *all* Ant scripts.
>
>I agree - and I think Peter does as well.  The thread started out with
>Peter asking which combination of tools he should use to create his
>prototype - so we can evaluate the impact - and somewhere down the
>thread I said I wouldn't care too much ...
>
>We all agree that Ant should work with its Object model and that
>parsing XML files should be just one way to create that model.  I view
>Peter's "Configure->Template->Build" system as another approach to
>create this object model.

+100

>What I'm more or less fighting against ATM is that we make any such
>other system an integral part of Ant itself - and I don't think Peter
>disagrees with me here either.

+1 here

>Most of the problems people have with Ant - at least those people
>asking for loops and such - stem from the fact that they are trying to
>make Ant fit the paradigm they've been using in their respective build
>systems before they switched to Ant IMHO.

right. Almost all of these requests come from people who are trying to
write generic targets - and while a good idea. Ant1 really doesn't support
this well.

>My major concern here is: Give them static templates and they don't
>even bother looking up another way of doing what they need with Ant.
>They'll talk about the complexity of XSLT and say Ant would be
>difficult to learn and all that.

XSLT is crap! A prime example of why design by comittee doesn't work ;) At
one stage the Cocoon project was specifying/implementing a simplified
templating language (SiLLy). Not sure if it ever got done but I was hoping
to poke them later in ant dev cycle to see if they could rework so we could
use it ;)

>If we have some static templating mechanism I strongly wish that we
>brand it as "this is not Ant".

right - much like imake/automake/autoconf is not make ;) 


Cheers,

Pete

*-----------------------------------------------------*
| "Faced with the choice between changing one's mind, |
| and proving that there is no need to do so - almost |
| everyone gets busy on the proof."                   |
|              - John Kenneth Galbraith               |
*-----------------------------------------------------*