Return-Path: Mailing-List: contact ant-user-help@jakarta.apache.org; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list ant-user@jakarta.apache.org Received: (qmail 34960 invoked from network); 7 Feb 2001 01:27:48 -0000 Received: from 24-25-204-225.san.rr.com (HELO buddha.reesd.tzo.com) (24.25.204.225) by h31.sny.collab.net with SMTP; 7 Feb 2001 01:27:48 -0000 Received: from looper ([24.25.203.173]) by buddha.reesd.tzo.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.0.2195.1600); Tue, 6 Feb 2001 17:28:13 -0800 From: David Rees To: ant-user@jakarta.apache.org Subject: Re: Can someone tell me what is so great about Ant? Date: Tue, 06 Feb 2001 17:19:33 -0800 Message-ID: <6u718tg4b3c08cotnbjp86bqf0vhf95ba4@4ax.com> References: <67FE02381F67D3119F960008C7845A2C0201CF57@nt_syd_ex09.macbank> In-Reply-To: X-Mailer: Forte Agent 1.8/32.548 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-OriginalArrivalTime: 07 Feb 2001 01:28:13.0969 (UTC) FILETIME=[3D5A1010:01C090A5] X-Spam-Rating: h31.sny.collab.net 1.6.2 0/1000/N I think another big advantage to Ant that I haven't seen listed is the separation of "what" needs to be done from "how" you are going to do it. I don't think Ant in its current incarnation is prefect in this regard, but it is closer to describing the "what" than Makefiles are (or can be). To go one more step I believe there are actually two parts of Ant. The Ant XML language (even if there isn't perfect DTD mechanism yet) and the Ant engine. In theory I can (and do) change the engine to change the how. IMHO, Ant's platform independence is really just a by-product of this what/how separation. Currently there are multiple hows built into the same Java codebase but it is quite possible to envision a completely different engine (e.g. Perl) that could read the XML and run builds. The above said, I think possible more work to have Ant move this way would be beneficial. dave