Comments on: Why Ant Sucks (Somehow)

By: Thomas Schraitle

Thomas Schraitle — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 20:59:32 +0000

Thanks for your recommendation. I've heard about Maven but I haven't had the time to have a closer look. > I’m working on build of maven package from jpackage.org for SUSE, but it’s little bit complicated due a “dependency hell”, Yes, Java packages can be a nightmare. I have seen Maven packages on the openSUSE buildserver:


$ webpin --url maven
   7 results (6 packages) found for "maven" in openSUSE_110                                                                 
* maven: Maven is a software project management and comprehension tool.                                                     
   - 2.0.8 [BS::home:/eggeral]                                                                                              
     @ http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/eggeral/openSUSE_11.0                                                
   - 2.0.9 [BS::home:/octo47:/java]                                                                                         
     @ http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/octo47:/java/openSUSE_11.0
...

By: Michal Vyskocil

Michal Vyskocil — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 07:40:55 +0000

Author of ant wrote some notices about ant and XML: ant dot-Next. But Java folks usually love XML, so I don’t expect that a new build system based on jython (or groovy, jruby, …) would be succesfull. And the number of Java developers which uses a generic text editor (or a generic XML one) for build.xml is futile.

BTW: look at the maven.apache.org. This tool is much more “intelligent” and not straightforward as a simple ant, but maven POM’s files has an appropriate XML schema. I’m working on build of maven package from jpackage.org for SUSE, but it’s little bit complicated due a “dependency hell”, because maven need several new packages, which needs another packages, which needs, … and sometimes I got a circular dependency, so it consumes a lot of time

By: Thomas Schraitle

Thomas Schraitle — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 10:27:26 +0000

Sure. The situation of XML editors in the open source field is rather bleak. Of course, there are some like Emacs, but unfortunately nothing comes close to oXygen. I use oXygen as my daily XML editor now, as it supports RELAX NG, W3C Schema, DTDs, has an XSLT debugger, and lots of other nice things.

By: Josef Reidinger

Josef Reidinger — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 07:52:26 +0000

Could I ask what xml editor you use in linux? I still finding one which fulfill my requirements.

By: Gabriel

Gabriel — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 17:41:09 +0000

>[...] XML shouldn’t be depend on a certain tool

We both agree on this

By: Thomas Schraitle

Thomas Schraitle — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 13:46:53 +0000

> It seems you don’t have much experience using this tool.

That could be the case, I wouldn’t deny it. I’ve just looked from the XML perspective.

> [...] most java developers for whom this tool is aimed, use eclipse to edit the build files.

I haven’t tried Eclipse yet but I guess, it is rather good for this task. However, I believe, XML shouldn’t be depend on a certain tool. XML is a platform and application neutral format. If it doesn’t allow me to edit my file in any decent XML editor, than something is really fishy.

By: Gabriel

Gabriel — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 11:41:18 +0000

So your are saying that ant sucks because it doesn’t have a DTD? Interesting.

It seems you don’t have much experience using this tool. ok I agree that editing the build file with a generic xml editor could be quite painful, though most java developers for whom this tool is aimed, use eclipse to edit the build files. The eclipse ant editor make it simple (for someone that knows what is doing ).

Sincerely, I prefer ant rather than maven.

Regards.