diff --git a/docs/ant2/features.html b/docs/ant2/features.html index 7780ada1c..1d7c18dcf 100644 --- a/docs/ant2/features.html +++ b/docs/ant2/features.html @@ -270,7 +270,9 @@
This is list is not complete, it just highlights some of the rejected features and tries to explain why they've been - rejected.
+ rejected. Two very common reasons to reject something were, that + the request has been too vague or the same functionality could + already be provided by some other accepted new feature.For a complete listing of all requested features, see requested-features.html. The
@@ -280,6 +282,74 @@
lines contained either [VOTE]
or
[DISC]
.
People asking for these kind of things have often heard the + standard "Ant shall not become yet another scripting language, Ant + shall not fall into the same traps make/Perl did ..." response + from the committers and some long-term ant-dev people.
+ +The long version of that answer is:
+ +That being said, Ant2 will make it easy to write iteration or + conditional tasks via the new container task concept. We expect + foreach, switch and if tasks to be written, but they will probably + not become core parts of the Ant distribution.
+ +The argument here is the same as for flow-control. We are + talking about complexity that can be pushed from the core to tasks + - and that is what will be done. Instead of additional power for + the if/unless attributes, Ant2 will have a new task that can set + properties based on the values of other properties or logical + combinations of other conditions, something like (making up + syntax):
+ ++<condition name="javamail-complete"> + <and> + <available class="javax.mail.Transport"/> + <available class="javax.activation.DataHandler"/> + </and> +</condition> ++ +
will become possible
+ +The general feeling was, that the combination of target + dependencies and multi-threading would soon become too complex, + especially since Ant2 will allow people to explicitly enforce the + order in which (independent) targets will be executed.
+ +This issue will be explored again later, it has not been + rejected for all time being, but it is out of scope for + Ant 2.0
+