... even if he doesn't seem to like it at all. He explains it in his Web Log.
The main reason against Ant he talks about is that he doesn't like to use XML to describe the build and that it is way too verbose for him. Fair enough.
Like Martin Fowler he is convinced that a real build needs the power of a programming language (Python in his case). Again, my build manager experience isn't much to talk about, so he may be correct. But the example given (by an intern of his) seems strange:
For instance, because a class may be compiled or not based on the presence of a jar, a whole separate target has to be created for any classes that want to use compiler arguments.as conditionally excluding classes from compilation is probably the only conditional logic that is really easy to do with Ant.
They went on and wrote a program that generates Ant build files from a simpler description but stuck with Ant mainly because Ant doesn't seem to be that bad and there was little reason to solve a problem that has already been solved - even if suboptimal according to their findings.
I disagree with quite a bit of what he says but think most of it is fair. Still,
Ant sucks on a number of levels (so much that the original inventor became disgusted with it and went off ...)could use some qualification. My recollection of Ant's past is certainly different from his interpretation.
path: /en/Apache/Ant | #