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<p class="comment">If something looks like this, this is either a
request for input or a "REVISIT" marker or similar.</p>
<h1>Ant2 Goals</h1>
<p>Even though Ant2 is expected to be incompatible with the
@@ -35,7 +47,9 @@
hidden behind facade tasks.</li>
<li>properties and data types will be unified so that they share
the same namespace and inheritance rules.</li>
the same namespace and inheritance rules. <i
class="comment">Need to talk about how ${} expansion works for
filesets and so on.</i></li>
</ul>
@@ -50,10 +64,19 @@
<li>add scoping rules for properties so that not all of them
will be inherited by sub-builds, only those that have been
specified explicitly.</li>
specified explicitly. <i class="comment">Fill in details once
they've been sorted out.</i></li>
</ul>
<p>The front-ends for Ant2 shall be smart enough to automatically
detect the required libraries (like <code>tools.jar</code>), the
use of native scripts shall be kept to a minimum.</p>
<p>Build file writers can attach a message to targets that will be
presented to the user if that target is going to be skipped (based
on the if/unless attribute of the target).</p>
<h2>Extensibility</h2>
<p>Ant2 like Ant1 uses build files written in XML as its main
@@ -68,16 +91,40 @@
Ant. Ant will automatically know all tasks contained in task
libraries that have been placed into a special directory - in
addition task libraries can be referenced and used in a build file
explicitly.</p>
explicitly. <i class="comment">Fill in details once they've been
sorted out.</i></p>
<p>It has become apparent, that several "aspects" of
tasks are so common that task writers find themselves duplicating
code all over again - things like classpath handling or "do
we stop the build if this task fails?" functionality for
example. Ant2 will provide a way to let the user attach an
"aspect handler" to a project - all attributes that live
in a certain namespace are going to be passed to this handler. <i
class="comment">Need to talk about TaskContext here.</i></p>
<p>Ant2 will farm out common functionality from tasks into utility
classes so that task writers can benefit from a tested and stable
framework - they shouldn't need to deal with existing tasks
directly (like some tasks "abuse" the
<code><touch></code> task in Ant1).</p>
<h1>New/Modified Features</h1>
<p>Ant2 will run the build process fully dynamically, which means
that task won't be instantiated before they are actually being run
and <code>${}</code> expansion will see the very latest value of a
property. It will be possible to reassign values of properties via
a built-in task.</p>
<h2>Compatibility with Ant1</h2>
<p>Ant2 is going to break Ant1 in several ways:</p>
<ul>
<li>Tasks written for Ant1 won't work in Ant2 as the API of
Ant's core and the names of utility classes are going to
<li>Tasks written for Ant1 won' t work in Ant2 as the API of
Ant' s core and the names of utility classes are going to
change. There will probably be adaptors and utility classes to
ease the transition for task writers.</li>
@@ -95,8 +142,73 @@
</ul>
<h2>Support Integration of Ant Into Other Tools</h2>
<p>Ant2 will have a clear separation between the front-end that is
responsible for user interactions, the object model that
represents the project to build and the part of Ant that runs the
build process itself <i class="comment">Name that TaskEngine,
ProjectEngine, ExecutionEngine or what?</i>. This separation is
expected to ease the integration of Ant (or parts of it) into
other products.</p>
<p>Ant2 itself will include a command line front-end and Antidote
will become the GUI front-end to it. Other front-ends like a
servlet front-end are expected <i class="comment">outside of
Ant's core</i> as well.</p>
<p>In addition to this separation, the following features should
help people who want to integrate Ant into their products:</p>
<ul>
<li>It will be possible to cancel a running build process.</li>
</ul>
<h2>More Control for Users and Build File Writers</h2>
<p>Ant2 will use a <code>BuildListener</code> concept similar to
the one of Ant1 but may provide a richer set of events. It will be
possible to attach and detach listeners to a build process from
within the build file and to modify the behavior of attached
listeners.</p>
<h2>Documentation System</h2>
<p>All tasks will be documented in XML files using a common DTD <i
class="comment">Still need to define it</i> - task libraries are
expected to include the documentation using this DTD inside the
library itself.</p>
<h2>Better Subbuild Handling</h2>
<p class="comment">Is there something beyond "should become
better" right now?</p>
<h1>Rejected Features</h1>
<p>This is list is not complete, it just highlights some of the
rejected features and tries to explain why they've been
rejected.</p>
<p>For a complete listing of all requested features, see <a
href="requested-features.html">requested-features.html</a>. The
discussion on all topics can be followed in the <a
href="http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=ant-dev&r=1&w=2">archives
for ant-dev</a> in threads starting from 2001-03-21 - the subject
lines contained either <code>[VOTE]</code> or
<code>[DISC]</code>.</p>
<h1>Ideas for New Tasks and Tools</h1>
<p>Please refer to <a
href="requested-features.html">requested-features.html</a> in the
section "I. Things that don't affect the core but are
requests for new tasks or enhancements to existing tasks."
for this.</p>
<hr>
<p align="center">$Id$</p>
<p align="center">Copyright © 2001 Apache Software
Stefan Bodewig