Ken Liu wrote: > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Ken Liu [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Sent: Friday, July 21, 2000 11:42 AM > > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Subject: RE: Why Properties became immutable > > > > > > > -- which means that complex constructs have to be expressed *in* > > > Ant, rather than > > > through scripts or XSLT templates. > > > > I totally agree - it isn't good to assume that the average Ant user > > has to learn XSLT just to perform some complex tasks. And you definitely > > can't expect other users of the build file to > (oops - hit Send accidentally) > You definitely can't expect other users of the build process to easily grok > the build file if it includes a bunch of (difficult to read) XSLT > expressions. > > Ken
I don't exactly want to defend this case, because I'm not thrilled about it either. I simply consider it the lesser of the evils. With that said, what you fall into here is the exact same patterns that we had with Imake. You have to have an "expert" write your XSLT files for you. Then the "common" user only has to deal with simple XML - presumably simpler and more specific than today's Ant files. This was regarded as a plus in the Imake days. This means, however, that you had better keep your expert fat and happy 'cause he has to be around to tweak the templates as needed. It also means that we can no longer easily exchange build files, because every separate installation is going to come up with a different set of templates, and therefore a different buildfile syntax. Imake worked around this by providing a standard set of templates that really weren't good for anyone. :-) In other words, the minuses outweigh the pluses.
