Re: [tlug] gpg AKA ant

["J. David Beutel" <jdb@example.com>]

On Sun, 17 Aug 2003, Jake Morrison wrote:

> Make certainly has its weaknesses, but I have never really 
> liked Ant. The Ant build files are very verbose compared to
> make, often typically three times the size. The main
> reason for its existence seems to be that javac doesn't
> work the same as standard Unix compilers, so the makefiles
> are a pain to write. What was Sun thinking? 
> And the whole idea of writing cross-platform
> make extensions in Java is disturbing, considering Java's
> "least common denominator" approach to OS interfaces. 
> Compared to GNU Make + external programs or SCons
> (http://www.scons.org/) Ant is really not very impressive.

In ant's defense,

1. It handles groups of files better than make.  E.g.,
<javac 
	src="src/java" 
	includes="util/**/*.java,**/core/**/*.java" 
	excludes="**/*Test*"/>

2. It provides access to many Java APIs, e.g., <junit>, <sql>, <xslt>.

3. It's cross-platform.  Make isn't (except for trivial stuff).

4. It's the de facto standard for Java.

11011011