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  15. <html>
  16. <body>
  17. <h2>
  18. <center>Requested Features for Ant2</center>
  19. </h2>
  20. <h4>
  21. I. Things that don't affect the core but are requests for new tasks or
  22. enhancements to existing tasks.
  23. </h4>
  24. &quot;Accepted&quot; for a task doesn't mean that
  25. task will be a core task (or even be supplied by a voter), just that having
  26. it (as an optional task) would be acceptable.
  27. <p>
  28. <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">
  29. &nbsp;&nbsp;<b>Accepted</b>
  30. </font>
  31. <blockquote>
  32. <ul><li>
  33. Add a new datatype filterset to group token-filters.
  34. </li></ul>
  35. </blockquote>
  36. <blockquote>
  37. <ul><li>
  38. Make usage of particular filters/filtersets explicit in copy tasks.
  39. </li></ul>
  40. </blockquote>
  41. <blockquote>
  42. <ul><li>
  43. Make facade tasks for things like <code>&lt;javac&gt;</code>
  44. (JikesImpl, ModernImpl, etc.).
  45. (One candidate is <code>&lt;jar&gt;</code>, with implementations for
  46. a <code>&lt;fastjar&gt;</code>, for example.)
  47. </li></ul>
  48. </blockquote>
  49. <blockquote>
  50. <ul><li>
  51. Unify multiple similar tasks to use similar forms (eg., all the
  52. <code>&lt;javacc&gt;</code>-type
  53. tools).
  54. </li></ul>
  55. </blockquote>
  56. <blockquote>
  57. <ul><li>
  58. Obfuscating task.
  59. </li></ul>
  60. </blockquote>
  61. <blockquote>
  62. <ul><li>
  63. Better scripting/notification support so the hooks are available to
  64. send notifications at certain times.
  65. </li></ul>
  66. </blockquote>
  67. <blockquote>
  68. <ul><li>
  69. Add an <code>&lt;ant&gt;</code> task that will find build files according
  70. to a fileset and invoke a common target in them. (<code>&lt;anton&gt;</code>?)
  71. </li></ul>
  72. </blockquote>
  73. <blockquote>
  74. <ul><li>
  75. Add a JavaApply task that executes a given class with files from a
  76. fileset as arguments (similar to <code>&lt;apply&gt;</code>).
  77. </li></ul>
  78. </blockquote>
  79. <blockquote>
  80. <ul><li>
  81. Include some more sophisticated loggers with the Ant distribution &#150;
  82. especially for sending emails. Make the existing one more flexible
  83. (stylesheet used by XmlLogger). (Could be part of the same module tasks
  84. would be developed in?)
  85. </li></ul>
  86. </blockquote>
  87. <blockquote>
  88. <ul><li>
  89. Better docs (eg., more examples, tutorials, beginner documents, reference
  90. sheets for tasks, printable version, etc.).
  91. </li></ul>
  92. </blockquote>
  93. <blockquote>
  94. <ul><li>
  95. RPM task.
  96. </li></ul>
  97. </blockquote>
  98. <blockquote>
  99. <ul><li>
  100. Task for splitting files (head/tail/split-like functionality).
  101. </li></ul>
  102. </blockquote>
  103. <blockquote>
  104. <ul><li>
  105. Task to create XMI from Java.
  106. </li></ul>
  107. </blockquote>
  108. <blockquote>
  109. <ul><li>
  110. Socksified networking tasks, SSH tasks.
  111. (Peter Donald expressed some legal concerns that might need to be overcome,
  112. depending on the implementation.)
  113. </li></ul>
  114. </blockquote>
  115. <blockquote>
  116. <ul><li>
  117. A reachable task that works much like <code>&lt;available&gt;</code>,
  118. for network URLs.
  119. </li></ul>
  120. </blockquote>
  121. <blockquote>
  122. <ul><li>
  123. Task to extract classes from a jar-file that a given class depends on.
  124. (Based on <code>&lt;depend&gt;</code> or IBM's JAX, for example.)
  125. </li></ul>
  126. </blockquote>
  127. <blockquote>
  128. <ul><li>
  129. Unify <code>&lt;available&gt;</code> and <code>&lt;uptodate&gt;</code>
  130. into a more general
  131. <code>&lt;condition&gt;</code> task &#150; support
  132. <code>AND</code>/<code>OR</code> of
  133. several tests here.
  134. (Will need more discussion because of vote by Peter Donald.)
  135. </li></ul>
  136. </blockquote>
  137. <blockquote>
  138. <ul><li>
  139. JSP-compilation task. (Sounds like a candidate for a facade task.)
  140. </li></ul>
  141. </blockquote>
  142. <blockquote>
  143. <ul><li>
  144. URL-spider task that checks links for missing content or server errors.
  145. </li></ul>
  146. </blockquote>
  147. <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">
  148. &nbsp;&nbsp;<b>Rejected</b>
  149. </font>
  150. <blockquote>
  151. <ul><li>
  152. Make the default logger's output clear, informative, and terse. (Rejectors
  153. think it already is.)
  154. </blockquote>
  155. </li></ul>
  156. <blockquote>
  157. <ul><li>
  158. Add an attribute to <code>&lt;property&gt;</code> to read in an entire file
  159. as the value of a property.
  160. </li></ul>
  161. </blockquote>
  162. <blockquote>
  163. <ul><li>
  164. Make PATH-handling consistent. Every task that has a PATH attribute
  165. must also accept references to PATHs.
  166. </li></ul>
  167. </blockquote>
  168. <br>
  169. <h4>
  170. II. Goals that need to be abstract until we get into design
  171. decisions.
  172. </h4>
  173. During the discussion it became obvious that some things from this list
  174. are goals for Ant and some should be guidelines for developers.
  175. Therefore, there are two flavors, &quot;Accepted&quot; and
  176. &quot;Accepted As Guideline&quot;.
  177. <p>
  178. <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">
  179. &nbsp;&nbsp;<b>Accepted</b>
  180. </font>
  181. <blockquote>
  182. <ul><li>
  183. Provide a clear mission statement for Ant.
  184. </li></ul>
  185. </blockquote>
  186. <blockquote>
  187. <ul><li>
  188. Main goals<b>:</b> simplicity, understandability, extensibility.
  189. </li></ul>
  190. </blockquote>
  191. <blockquote>
  192. <ul><li>
  193. Remove magic properties if at all humanly possible.
  194. </li></ul>
  195. </blockquote>
  196. <blockquote>
  197. <ul><li>
  198. Remove as much dependency on native scripts as possible.
  199. </li></ul>
  200. </blockquote>
  201. <blockquote>
  202. <ul><li>
  203. Clean object model (ie., Project/Target/Task).
  204. </li></ul>
  205. </blockquote>
  206. <blockquote>
  207. <ul><li>
  208. Good event model to integrate well with IDE/GUI/etc.
  209. </li></ul>
  210. </blockquote>
  211. <blockquote>
  212. <ul><li>
  213. Use a consistent naming scheme for attributes across all tasks.
  214. </li></ul>
  215. </blockquote>
  216. <blockquote>
  217. <ul><li>
  218. Keep build-file syntax as compatible to Ant1 as possible
  219. (ie., don't break something just because we can).
  220. </li></ul>
  221. </blockquote>
  222. <blockquote>
  223. <ul><li>
  224. Keep the interface for tasks as similar to that of Ant1 as
  225. possible (ie., don't break something just because we can).
  226. </li></ul>
  227. </blockquote>
  228. <blockquote>
  229. <ul><li>
  230. Ant should be cancelable.
  231. </li></ul>
  232. </blockquote>
  233. <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">
  234. &nbsp;&nbsp;<b>Accepted As Guideline</b>
  235. </font>
  236. <blockquote>
  237. <ul><li>
  238. No commit of new features without documentation.
  239. </li></ul>
  240. </blockquote>
  241. <blockquote>
  242. <ul><li>
  243. No commit of new features without test-cases.
  244. </li></ul>
  245. </blockquote>
  246. <br>
  247. <h4>
  248. III. Things that are simple and easy to implement, where we expect the
  249. committers to agree.
  250. </h4>
  251. <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">
  252. &nbsp;&nbsp;<b>Accepted</b>
  253. </font>
  254. <blockquote>
  255. <ul><li>
  256. Namespace support so different concerns can occupy different namespaces
  257. from Ant (thus, SAX2/JAXP1.1).
  258. </li></ul>
  259. </blockquote>
  260. <blockquote>
  261. <ul><li>
  262. Java2
  263. </li></ul>
  264. </blockquote>
  265. <blockquote>
  266. <ul><li>
  267. Remove all deprecated methods, attributes, tasks.
  268. </li></ul>
  269. </blockquote>
  270. <blockquote>
  271. <ul><li>
  272. Allow all datatypes to be defined anywhere (ie., as children of
  273. project as well as of target).
  274. </li></ul>
  275. </blockquote>
  276. <blockquote>
  277. <ul><li>
  278. Make properties fully dynamic (ie., allow their value to be reassigned).
  279. </li></ul>
  280. </blockquote>
  281. <blockquote>
  282. <ul><li>
  283. Unify the namespace of all data types (ie., properties + filesets +
  284. patternsets + filtersets).
  285. </li></ul>
  286. </blockquote>
  287. <blockquote>
  288. <ul><li>
  289. Add a user-defined message if a target will be skipped as a
  290. result of the specified <code>if/unless</code>.
  291. </li></ul>
  292. </blockquote>
  293. <blockquote>
  294. <ul><li>
  295. Allow user datatypes to be defined via a <code>&lt;typedef&gt;</code>
  296. similar to <code>&lt;taskdef&gt;</code>.
  297. </li></ul>
  298. </blockquote>
  299. <br>
  300. <h4>
  301. IV. Things we probably agree on but need to discuss the details or
  302. decide between several possible options.
  303. </h4>
  304. &quot;Accepted&quot; means the goal/idea is fine, not that a decision on a
  305. particular implementation has been made.
  306. <p>
  307. <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">
  308. &nbsp;&nbsp;<b>Accepted</b>
  309. </font>
  310. <blockquote>
  311. <ul><li>
  312. The ability for GUI/IDE tools to integrate easily with object model
  313. without reinventing the wheel and writing their own parser (which
  314. Antidote was forced to do).
  315. (Two suggested solutions were allowing GUI developers to extend
  316. the object model (ie., GUITask extends Task) or to have Task as an
  317. interface (ie., GUITask implements Task). This way, the GUI tasks could
  318. be W3C DOM elements, have property vetoers/listeners, etc.)
  319. </li></ul>
  320. </blockquote>
  321. <blockquote>
  322. <ul><li>
  323. Support for numerous front-ends &#150; from command-line over GUI to servlets.
  324. (Corollary of the above?)
  325. </li></ul>
  326. </blockquote>
  327. <blockquote>
  328. <ul><li>
  329. Fully interpreted at run-time. (This almost requires some form of
  330. abstraction/proxy that stands in place of tasks till it is
  331. interpreted. This can be hash-tables/simple DOM-like model/whatever.)
  332. </li></ul>
  333. </blockquote>
  334. <blockquote>
  335. <ul><li>
  336. Provide utility classes to aid in building tasks (ie., like
  337. <code>&lt;uptodate&gt;</code> functionality abstracted).
  338. (Need to become more specific here.)
  339. </li></ul>
  340. </blockquote>
  341. <blockquote>
  342. <ul><li>
  343. Make ant-call a low-cost operation so it can do certain
  344. optional/template-like operations.
  345. (Corollary of "fully interpreted at run-time"?)
  346. </li></ul>
  347. </blockquote>
  348. <blockquote>
  349. <ul><li>
  350. Allow facilities to build projects from multiple sources (ie., CSS+XML,
  351. XSLT+XML, Velocity+text or database, from inside jars or normal
  352. <code>build.xml</code> files, etc.)
  353. (Allow the project tree to be built dynamically.)
  354. </li></ul>
  355. </blockquote>
  356. <blockquote>
  357. <ul><li>
  358. Move to a system that allows docs to be generated &#150; doc snippets
  359. should be included with the tasks they document.
  360. (Which DTD? Which tools for generation?)
  361. </li></ul>
  362. </blockquote>
  363. <blockquote>
  364. <ul><li>
  365. Allow tasks to be loaded from jars. (Use
  366. either an XML file in <code>TSK-INF/taskdefs.xml</code> or a
  367. manifest file.)
  368. </li></ul>
  369. </blockquote>
  370. <blockquote>
  371. <ul><li>
  372. Allow documentation to be stored in <code>.tsk</code> jars.
  373. (Corollary of the above two points?)
  374. </li></ul>
  375. </blockquote>
  376. <blockquote>
  377. <ul><li>
  378. Separate tasks into <code>.tsk</code> jars somehow.
  379. (Decide on categories.
  380. Probably via function &#150; ie., java tasks, file tasks, EJB tasks, etc.)
  381. </li></ul>
  382. </blockquote>
  383. <blockquote>
  384. <ul><li>
  385. Make having separate build-files easy (<i>&#224; la</i> AntFarm) and importing different
  386. projects a breeze.
  387. </li></ul>
  388. </blockquote>
  389. <blockquote>
  390. <ul><li>
  391. Provide support for user-defined task configurations &#150; (ie., give
  392. users the ability to specify a default value for attributes (eg., always
  393. use <code>debug="true"</code> in <code>&lt;javac&gt;</code> unless
  394. something else has been specified).
  395. (Three ideas so far<b>:</b> a CSS-like language,
  396. a <code>&lt;taskconfig&gt;</code> element, or
  397. properties following a specific naming scheme.)
  398. </li></ul>
  399. </blockquote>
  400. <blockquote>
  401. <ul><li>
  402. Support more control over the properties that are going to be passed
  403. to subprojects (modules).
  404. </li></ul>
  405. </blockquote>
  406. <blockquote>
  407. <ul><li>
  408. Task to prompt for user input.
  409. (Does affect core, as we need a means to request input from the front-end.)
  410. </li></ul>
  411. </blockquote>
  412. <blockquote>
  413. <ul><li>
  414. Add CVS login feature.
  415. (Requires handling of user input.)
  416. </li></ul>
  417. </blockquote>
  418. <blockquote>
  419. <ul><li>
  420. Easier installation process. GUI, maybe webstart from the homepage.
  421. This includes asking the user whether he wants to use optional tasks
  422. and downloads the required libs, automatic upgrades and so on.
  423. Self-extracting jar installer<b>:</b>
  424. <br>
  425. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<code>java -jar jakarta-ant-1.3-bin.jar</code>
  426. <br>
  427. Prompts for destination directory, extracts archive, fixes all
  428. text files with <code>&lt;fixCRLF&gt;</code> task<b>;</b> on UNIX,
  429. makes scripts executable.
  430. Could also modify ant scripts with the location of <code>ANT_HOME</code>.
  431. </li></ul>
  432. </blockquote>
  433. <blockquote>
  434. <ul><li>
  435. Logo for Ant.
  436. </li></ul>
  437. </blockquote>
  438. <blockquote>
  439. <ul><li>
  440. Detach Ant from <code>System.err</code>/<code>.in</code>/<code>.out</code>.
  441. (Beware of problems with spawned processes.)
  442. </li></ul>
  443. </blockquote>
  444. <blockquote>
  445. <ul><li>
  446. Build-files should be declarative in nature.
  447. </li></ul>
  448. </blockquote>
  449. <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">
  450. &nbsp;&nbsp;<b>Rejected</b>
  451. </font>
  452. <blockquote>
  453. <ul><li>
  454. It should be possible to modify details of the actual build (e.g. classpath,
  455. compiler used, etc.) without the need to change the build specification.
  456. (Do <code>build.compiler</code> and <code>build.sysclasspath</code>
  457. cover everything, or do we need to add more stuff like this?)
  458. </li></ul>
  459. </blockquote>
  460. <blockquote>
  461. <ul><li>
  462. Better sub-project handling
  463. (whatever that means in detail).
  464. </li></ul>
  465. </blockquote>
  466. <br>
  467. <h4>
  468. V. Things we probably don't agree on.
  469. </h4>
  470. <i><b>Datatypes</b></i>
  471. <p>
  472. <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">
  473. &nbsp;&nbsp;<b>Accepted</b>
  474. </font>
  475. <blockquote>
  476. <ul><li>
  477. Allow <code>&lt;include&gt;/&lt;exclude&gt;</code>
  478. to work with multiple characteristerics of a file
  479. (ie., include into fileset if file is readable, modified after 29th of Feb,
  480. has a name that matches the pattern <code>&quot;**/*.java&quot;</code> and
  481. the property <code>foo.present</code> is set. Something similar to<b>:</b>
  482. <pre>
  483. &lt;include&gt;
  484. &lt;item-filter type="name" value="**/*.java"/&gt;
  485. &lt;item-filter type="permission" value="r"/&gt;
  486. &lt;!-- could optionally be directory or some other system specific features --&gt;
  487. &lt;item-filter type="type" value="file"/&gt;
  488. &lt;item-filter type="modify-time"
  489. operation="greater-than"
  490. value="29th Feb 2003"/&gt;
  491. &lt;/include&gt;
  492. </pre>
  493. </li></ul>
  494. </blockquote>
  495. <blockquote>
  496. <ul><li>
  497. Provide support for non-hardwired (ie., loadable) low-level
  498. components (mappers/itemset-filters/converters). Allow them to be
  499. loaded in either globally or via a new classloader.
  500. </li></ul>
  501. </blockquote>
  502. <blockquote>
  503. <ul><li>
  504. Provide support for non-hardwired (ie., loadable) converters.
  505. <br>
  506. Q<b>:</b> What is a converter? Is this an implementation detail?
  507. <br>
  508. A<b>:</b> Not an implementation detail, but a way to extend the engine
  509. to convert more datatypes. Currently, we have a fixed set that is
  510. expanded on occasion (ie., includes primitive types + File). Instead
  511. of spreading converting code throughout the tasks, it can be centralized
  512. into one component and used by the engine. This becomes particularly
  513. relevent if you build Ant-based testing systems and use Ant in certain
  514. web-related areas.
  515. </li></ul>
  516. </blockquote>
  517. <blockquote>
  518. <ul><li>
  519. Set-arithmetic for fileset/patternset/*set.
  520. </li></ul>
  521. </blockquote>
  522. <blockquote>
  523. <ul><li>
  524. Inheritance of Ant properties/datatypes/context/etc. in project hierarchy.
  525. </li></ul>
  526. </blockquote>
  527. <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">
  528. &nbsp;&nbsp;<b>Rejected</b>
  529. </font>
  530. <blockquote>
  531. <ul><li>
  532. Allow mappers to be genericized so that particular features can be modified
  533. during mapping. Something similar to<b>:</b>
  534. <pre>
  535. &lt;fileset ...&gt;
  536. &lt;include name="*.sh"/&gt;
  537. &lt;mapper type="unix-permissions"&gt;
  538. &lt;param name="user" value="ant"/&gt;
  539. &lt;param name="group" value="ant"/&gt;
  540. &lt;param name="mod" value="755"/&gt;
  541. &lt;/mapper&gt;
  542. &lt;/fileset&gt;
  543. </pre>
  544. </li></ul>
  545. </blockquote>
  546. <blockquote>
  547. <ul><li>
  548. Provide datatypes through property tag and remove need for separate
  549. free-standing entities. That is<b>:</b><br>
  550. <pre>
  551. &lt;property name="foo"&gt;
  552. &lt;fileset dir="blah"&gt;
  553. &lt;include name="*/**.java" /&gt;
  554. &lt;/fileset&gt;
  555. &lt;/property&gt;
  556. </pre>
  557. </li></ul>
  558. </blockquote>
  559. <blockquote>
  560. <ul><li>
  561. Make all datatypes interfaces to allow them to be customized in many
  562. ways.
  563. </li></ul>
  564. </blockquote>
  565. <blockquote>
  566. <ul><li>
  567. Inheritance between Ant datatypes (ie., fileset A inherits from
  568. fileset B (includes all entries in A).
  569. </li></ul>
  570. </blockquote>
  571. <blockquote>
  572. <ul><li>
  573. Homogenize notion of PATHs and filesets.
  574. </li></ul>
  575. </blockquote>
  576. <i><b>Ant's goals</b></i>
  577. <p>
  578. <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">
  579. &nbsp;&nbsp;<b>Accepted</b>
  580. </font>
  581. <blockquote>
  582. <ul><li>
  583. Provide support for CJAN.
  584. <br>
  585. Q: In what way?<br>
  586. A: Probably by supplying a set of tasks that download versioned
  587. binaries and their associated dependencies, caching the downloads
  588. in a known place and updating binaries when required.
  589. (&quot;When required&quot; being indicated by a change in property values).
  590. </li></ul>
  591. </blockquote>
  592. <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">
  593. &nbsp;&nbsp;<b>Rejected</b> (as a primary goal)
  594. </font>
  595. <blockquote>
  596. <ul><li>
  597. Make it possible to re-use the task engine for other things
  598. (ie., Installshield-type app, Peter's cron-server, and other task-based
  599. operations).
  600. </li></ul>
  601. </blockquote>
  602. <i><b>Class-loading</b></i>
  603. <p>
  604. <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">
  605. &nbsp;&nbsp;<b>Rejected</b>
  606. </font>
  607. <blockquote>
  608. <ul><li>
  609. Force resolution of classes on loading, to identify class-loader
  610. issues early (at least in global classloader).
  611. </li></ul>
  612. </blockquote>
  613. <blockquote>
  614. <ul><li>
  615. Ignore any classes contained in the damned ext dirs of a
  616. JVM &#150; possibly by launching with something like<b>:</b>
  617. <br>
  618. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<code>jar -Djava.ext.dir=foo -jar ant.jar</code>
  619. <br>
  620. (Accepted if optional.)
  621. </li></ul>
  622. </blockquote>
  623. <p>
  624. <i><b>Workspace/sub-build issues</b></i>
  625. <p>
  626. <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">
  627. &nbsp;&nbsp;<b>Accepted</b>
  628. </font>
  629. <blockquote>
  630. <ul><li>
  631. Create the concept of workspace so that projects can be built in a
  632. DAG and thus enable projects like Catalina/Tomcat to have an easy
  633. build process. It also helps CJAN to a lesser degree and would
  634. partially solve the jars-in-CVS thing.
  635. </li></ul>
  636. </blockquote>
  637. <blockquote>
  638. <ul><li>
  639. Allow a target to depend on a target in another build-file.
  640. </li></ul>
  641. </blockquote>
  642. <p>
  643. <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">
  644. &nbsp;&nbsp;<b>Rejected</b>
  645. </font>
  646. <blockquote>
  647. <ul><li>
  648. Project inheritance. (What's this?)
  649. </li></ul>
  650. </blockquote>
  651. <blockquote>
  652. <ul><li>
  653. Target inheritance. That is, the ability to include targets from other
  654. project files, overriding them as necessary (so, cascading project
  655. files).
  656. </li></ul>
  657. </blockquote>
  658. <blockquote>
  659. <ul><li>
  660. Add an attribute to <code>&lt;ant&gt;</code> to feed back the environment
  661. (properties and taskdefs) from the child build to the parent.
  662. </li></ul>
  663. </blockquote>
  664. <blockquote>
  665. <ul><li>
  666. Allow a target to reference properties defined in another build-file.
  667. </li></ul>
  668. </blockquote>
  669. <p>
  670. <i><b>Documentation system</b></i>
  671. <p>
  672. <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">
  673. &nbsp;&nbsp;<b>Accepted</b> (with no decision on which system to use)
  674. </font>
  675. <blockquote>
  676. <ul><li>
  677. Generate docs by Anakia/XSLT.
  678. (Corollary of "move to a system that allows docs to be generated"?)
  679. </li></ul>
  680. </blockquote>
  681. <p>
  682. <i><b>Task API</b></i>
  683. <p>
  684. <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">
  685. &nbsp;&nbsp;<b>Accepted</b>
  686. </font>
  687. <blockquote>
  688. <ul><li>
  689. Tasks provide some way to identify their attributes from the outside.
  690. Possible solutions include a special method like <code>getProperties()</code>,
  691. an external describing file shipping with the task class or special
  692. Javadoc comments parsed by a custom doclet. Whatever the method, it
  693. should not impose any cost on run-time, as it is only used a small
  694. percentage of the time (design-time).
  695. </li></ul>
  696. </blockquote>
  697. <blockquote>
  698. <ul><li>
  699. Provide <code>&quot;failonerror&quot;</code>-like functionality to all tasks.
  700. (Provide this as an aspect?? Much like logging aspect or classloader aspect).
  701. </li></ul>
  702. </blockquote>
  703. <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">
  704. &nbsp;&nbsp;<b>Rejected</b>
  705. </font>
  706. <blockquote>
  707. <ul><li>
  708. Tasks should have access to its own XML representation.
  709. </blockquote>
  710. </li></ul>
  711. <blockquote>
  712. <ul><li>
  713. Task level if and unless attributes.
  714. </li></ul>
  715. </blockquote>
  716. <blockquote>
  717. <ul><li>
  718. Allow tasks to find out, whether another task has completed successfully.
  719. </li></ul>
  720. </blockquote>
  721. <p>
  722. <i><b>Logging</b></i>
  723. <blockquote>
  724. <ul><li>
  725. Allow build-file writers to modify logging (verbosity, for example)
  726. on a target-by-target or task-by-task basis.
  727. </li></ul>
  728. </blockquote>
  729. <blockquote>
  730. <ul><li>
  731. Make loggers configurable via build.xml.
  732. </li></ul>
  733. </blockquote>
  734. <p>
  735. <i><b>Multi-threading</b></i>
  736. <p>
  737. <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">
  738. &nbsp;&nbsp;<b>Accepted</b>
  739. </font>
  740. <blockquote>
  741. <ul><li>
  742. Multi-threaded execution of tasks within the same target.
  743. </li></ul>
  744. </blockquote>
  745. <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">
  746. &nbsp;&nbsp;<b>Rejected</b>
  747. </font>
  748. <blockquote>
  749. <ul><li>
  750. Multithreaded execution of targets.
  751. </li></ul>
  752. </blockquote>
  753. <p>
  754. <i><b>Procedural versus purely declarative</b></i>
  755. <p>
  756. <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">
  757. &nbsp;&nbsp;<b>Rejected</b>
  758. </font>
  759. <blockquote>
  760. <ul><li>
  761. Simple flow-control (<code>if-then-else</code>, <code>for</code>)
  762. </li></ul>
  763. </blockquote>
  764. <blockquote>
  765. <ul><li>
  766. Targets should be like methods, including a return value.
  767. </li></ul>
  768. </blockquote>
  769. <blockquote>
  770. <ul><li>
  771. Build-files should be purely declarative.
  772. </li></ul>
  773. </blockquote>
  774. <p>
  775. <i><b>Properties</b></i>
  776. <p>
  777. <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">
  778. &nbsp;&nbsp;<b>Accepted</b>
  779. </font>
  780. <blockquote>
  781. <ul><li>
  782. Ability to manage scoping of properties in general
  783. (ie., target/project/workspace).
  784. </li></ul>
  785. </blockquote>
  786. <p>
  787. <i><b>Templates</b></i>
  788. <p>
  789. <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">
  790. &nbsp;&nbsp;<b>Rejected</b>
  791. </font>
  792. <blockquote>
  793. <ul><li>
  794. It should be possible to provide general/(template?) build
  795. specifications, and to declare, for a concrete item, that it should be
  796. built according to such a general specification.
  797. </ul></li>
  798. </blockquote>
  799. <p>
  800. <i><b>XML issues</b></i>
  801. <p>
  802. <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">
  803. &nbsp;&nbsp;<b>Accepted</b>
  804. </font>
  805. <blockquote>
  806. <ul><li>
  807. A built-in mechanism to include build-file fragments &#150; something
  808. that doesn't use <code>SYSTEM</code> entities at all and therefore is
  809. XSchema-friendly, allows for property expansions, etc.
  810. </li></ul>
  811. </blockquote>
  812. <blockquote>
  813. <ul><li>
  814. Allow Ant to farm out attributes and elements that are <i>not</i>
  815. in the Ant namespace to other components (ie., hand <code>doc:</code> elements
  816. to the Documentation component or <code>log:</code> attributes to the Log
  817. policy component, etc.
  818. </li></ul>
  819. </blockquote>
  820. <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">
  821. &nbsp;&nbsp;<b>Rejected</b>
  822. </font>
  823. <blockquote>
  824. <ul><li>
  825. Let Ant ignore &#150; but warn &#150; if unknown XML elements or attributes
  826. occur in a build-file.
  827. </li></ul>
  828. </blockquote>
  829. <p>
  830. <i><b>Core extensions</b></i>
  831. <p>
  832. <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">
  833. &nbsp;&nbsp;<b>Accepted</b>
  834. </font>
  835. <blockquote>
  836. <ul><li>
  837. Allow sequence to be specified in <code>&quot;depends&quot;</code> attribute,
  838. or enhance <code>&lt;antcall&gt;</code> to work with current list of executed
  839. targets.
  840. </li></ul>
  841. </blockquote>
  842. <blockquote>
  843. <ul><li>
  844. Provide a way to define the order in which targets that a given target
  845. depends upon get executed. (Same as above?)
  846. </li></ul>
  847. </blockquote>
  848. <blockquote>
  849. <ul><li>
  850. Support nesting tasks into other elements &#150; not just as children of
  851. target &#150; as proposed by Thomas Christen in
  852. <a href http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=ant-dev&m=98130655812010&w=2>
  853. his mail message</a>.
  854. </li></ul>
  855. </blockquote>
  856. <blockquote>
  857. <ul><li>
  858. Define task contexts that define various common aspects (logging,
  859. failure handling, etc.), and assign them to tasks.
  860. </li></ul>
  861. </blockquote>
  862. <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">
  863. &nbsp;&nbsp;<b>Rejected</b>
  864. </font>
  865. <blockquote>
  866. <ul><li>
  867. Allow named tasks to be defined by <code>&lt;script&gt;</code> elements.
  868. </li></ul>
  869. </blockquote>
  870. <blockquote>
  871. <ul><li>
  872. Specify an OnFail task or target that runs in case of a build
  873. failure.
  874. </li></ul>
  875. </blockquote>
  876. <blockquote>
  877. <ul><li>
  878. Make <code>if/unless</code> attributes check for the value of a property, not
  879. only its existance.
  880. </li></ul>
  881. </blockquote>
  882. <blockquote>
  883. <ul><li>
  884. Check for more than one condition in <code>if/unless</code> attributes.
  885. </li></ul>
  886. </blockquote>
  887. <p>
  888. <i><b>Organization</b></i>
  889. <p>
  890. <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">
  891. &nbsp;&nbsp;<b>Rejected</b>
  892. </font>
  893. <blockquote>
  894. <ul><li>
  895. Separate CVSes and code hierarchies for<b>:</b>
  896. </li></ul>
  897. <ul type="circle">
  898. <li>task engine [org.apache.task.*]</li>
  899. <li>project engine (ie., model of targets/projects/workspaces) +
  900. support/utility classes [org.apache.ant.*]</li>
  901. <li>core tasks (ie., tasks supported by Ant contributors) [org.apache.???]</li>
  902. </ul>
  903. </blockquote>
  904. <p>
  905. <i><b>Miscellaneous</b></i>
  906. <p>
  907. <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">
  908. &nbsp;&nbsp;<b>Accepted</b>
  909. </font>
  910. <blockquote>
  911. <ul><li>
  912. Internationalization.
  913. </li></ul>
  914. </blockquote>
  915. <p>
  916. <h4>
  917. VI. Things that were submitted late
  918. </h4>
  919. <p>
  920. <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">
  921. &nbsp;&nbsp;<b>Rejected</b>
  922. </font>
  923. <blockquote>
  924. <ul><li>
  925. Integration of the <code>&lt;depend&gt;</code> and <code>&lt;javac&gt;</code>
  926. tasks.
  927. </li></ul>
  928. </blockquote>
  929. <blockquote>
  930. <ul><li>
  931. Recursive property resolution (ie., resolving <code>${dist.${name}.dir}</code>)
  932. </li></ul>
  933. </blockquote>
  934. </body>
  935. </html>