An other thing to specify with before is its position relatively to the
dependencies of the 'extended' taget.

Do we place the before really just before the target itself, or before the
dependencies of the target?

The second aproach is currently possible from the script that want to extend
an imported script:

<target name="pre-foo">
</target>
<target name="foo" depends="pre-foo , imported.foo"/>

The first aproach requires that the imported script has anticipated te need
:
<target name="just-before-foo"/>
<target name="foo" depends="foo-depends,just-before-foo"/>

--
Gilles Scokart