Nicola Ken Barozzi writes:
> dion@multitask.com.au wrote:
> > Long Email Warning....
> >
> > I've spent some time this weekend reading up on the various proposals
> for
> > Ant 2, and my first reaction is:
> >
> > 'Is Ant dead?'
> :-))
> -Javaworld editors' choice 2002
> -Development software 2002 Productivity award
> If this is _dead_ ;-)
IBM's VisualAge for Java was a JavaWorld Editor's choice finalist from
memory last year, and it's now a defunct product. Winning awards proves
how good it is, not whether development has stagnated.
> What instead I personally am starting to think, is that Ant*2* is dead.
Glad to see someone come out and say it. Personally, this would be a
tragedy for me, given the limitations of Ant 1.x.
> The proposals are doing an excellent job in driving the incremental
> changes in the 1.* releases, which are gaining the Ant2 features
gradually.
Which isn't really the point though is it? The idea of proposals is for an
eventual vote, not as a sandbox for development.
> I think that Ant has big room to grow, as it's doing now; there is the
> new <import> tag proposal and patch, the antlib one.
Ant definitely has lots of places to grow into. The question is 'How?' not
whether it will. Currently we are staying on an evolutionary path with
little or no discussion of the alternatives.
> If things continue as now, Ant2 will (maybe) come out of Ant 1.9 as a
> natural evolution.
Possibly. And it may also take a lot longer to get there than if we adopt
one of the proposals now, and freeze the Ant 1.x code.
> Of course, this is my very personal guess.
Ditto.
--
dIon Gillard, Multitask Consulting
Work: http://www.multitask.com.au
Developers: http://adslgateway.multitask.com.au/developers
|