2008/4/30 Ittay Dror <ittay.dror@(protected)>:
>
> I've read this thread and would like to maybe try and take this discussion
> elsewhere.
>
> The way I see it is that Ant and Maven came to being in order to simplify
> building projects. The philosophy (as I see it) was either "create an xml
> file with a few lines calling some tasks" or "create an xml with a short
> configuration". Along the way, it became apparent that building a project
> involves a lot of logic and thus these two frameworks grew until now they
> are both not simple to use.
>
> The root of this is, I think, because while dealing with all this build
> logic, both frameworks refused to embrace the principals behind OOP. Both
> obviously need a backing language to actually do things and have chosen
> Java, but the front end is not OO.
>
> And now this discussion seem to try to invent new ways of accomplishing
> logic by creating a 'before' attribute or macro redefinition etc. Why?
>
> Now, creating a full blown OO language in XML will also defy the 'easy'
> purpose, mainly because XML was not designed to be a language (verbose
> syntax, no debugger, etc.).
>
> But what about prototype oriented syntax? The benefit is that there's no
> introduction of 'class' concept, modifying objects is easy.
>
> General idea is that the framework defines objects (mainly containers of
> methods == tasks). Then the user creates his own object (data), and defines
> the prototype of that object to be one of the frameworks, thus getting all
> functionality. If he wants, he can override whatever methods he wants.
> Having an object that encapsulates methods allows creating helper methods
> which can easily be overridden , without complexity.
>
> So something like:
>
>  <sourcePath>/path/to/source/files</sourcePath>
>
>
> <main>object.compile</main>
>
> where 'jar_project' is defined by the framework (more like a toolkit) and
> contains methods like 'compile', 'clean', etc. It can also have
> 'create_eclipse_project' method based on the data passed to it.
>
> I hope I was clear enough.
>
> Ittay
>
> Oh, one more thing, with all this logic around, there really should be a
> better way of debugging than 'echo'. Maybe the framework can convert the XML
> code to some language for easy debugging?
>
>

You should maybe have a look to buildr.

--
Gilles Scokart

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