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Message-ID: <4E7888D4F219E145B6F81E5D3049E3BF1B10CB@scmail01.arsin.com>
From: Peter  Vogel <pvogel@arsin.com>
To: "'ant-user@jakarta.apache.org'" <ant-user@jakarta.apache.org>
Subject: RE: Competition to Ant
Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2001 10:27:16 -0700
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It's more a matter of "complex" as Peter D. suggested, and, in 
most of the cases where there is "complexity" to deal with, it
is a matter of the organizational complexity (multiple organizational
projects contributing to one or more products) and a need to present
a *very* simple face to the developers who use it.

For example, here's a project build file (with some expository comments
removed for e-mail brevity):

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE project
        [<!ENTITY property  SYSTEM "file:../../sysbuild/property.xml">
         <!ENTITY targets   SYSTEM "file:../../sysbuild/target.xml">]>
<project name="gtpd" basedir=".." default="build">

    <!-- OVERRIDE PARAMETERS BEGIN HERE -->

    <!-- Include property.xml which defines the default properties.  -->
    &property;

    <!-- LOCAL CLASSPATH ELEMENT -->
    <path id="local.classpath">
        <fileset dir="${eombutil}" includes="**/*.jar"/>
    </path>

    <!-- SUPPLEMENTAL TARGETS BEGIN HERE -->

    <!-- Include target.xml which defines the default targets.  -->
    &targets;

</project>

Behind this, of course, are the property.xml and target.xml files which
are responsible for setting up a standard environment and target set 
to support the *product* build.

It should be noted that in order to make this work as cleanly as it does
I needed to patch ant in a couple of ways:

1.  expand properties in the target element's depend attribute's value.
2.  fix <tarfileset> to use it's "dir" value instead of the tar's basedir
3.  add the "outputproperty" attribute to <exec> to store the output of a 
    command in a property.

And we wrote a custom task to handle building Solaris Packages from what
we built.

It would be even cleaner with a <foreach> :-)

-Peter




> -----Original Message-----
> From: Larry V. Streepy, Jr. [mailto:streepy@healthlanguage.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2001 9:26 AM
> To: ant-user@jakarta.apache.org
> Subject: Re: Competition to Ant
> 
> 
> Probably shouldn't even ask this, but what do you consider a "large"
> project?  I'm managing a project with hundreds of source 
> files, creation
> of a dozen jar files, EJB deployment, IIOP support, some platform
> specific behavior for creating distribution media and I have not hand
> any significant problems with ant.
> 
> Jesse Tilly wrote:
> > 
> > heh.  I think Peter V. would disagree with that "suitable for large
> > projects" statement....as would I.
> > 
> > MrT
> > 
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Jim Jackl-Mochel [mailto:jmochel@foliage.com]
> > > Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2001 10:33 AM
> > > To: ant-user@jakarta.apache.org
> > > Subject: RE: Competition to Ant
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > I don't know if they are truly competition but there are jmk
> > > and jmake.
> > > Both are small and clean but don't have ANT's suitability 
> for large
> > > projects.
> > >
> > >
> > > Jim JM
> > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > From: Shaikh, Mehmood [mailto:Mehmood.Shaikh@ccra-adrc.gc.ca]
> > > > Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2001 10:36 AM
> > > > To: 'ant-user@jakarta.apache.org'
> > > > Subject: Competition to Ant
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Is anyone aware of any competition to Ant as a build tool?
> > > >
> > > > Thanks
> > > >
> > > > Mehmood
> > >
> 
> -- 
> Larry V. Streepy, Jr.
> Chief Technical Officer and VP of Engineering
> 
> Health Language, Inc.  -- "We speak the language of healthcare"
> 
> 970/626-5028 (office)           mailto:streepy@healthlanguage.com
> 970/626-4425 (fax)              http://www.healthlanguage.com
>