Can I start the votes rolling AGAINST this request??? "Ant is great but to replace make for most "standard" build environments, it needs a way to specify any compiler and targets, not just javac/jikes and *.java->class files. Several of our projects have C modules as well. A <compile> tag with an attribute for specifying javac or jikes or gcc or bcc would be useful. Then running ant would build whole systems containing java and C files for quicker deployment without the makefile hassles."
Ant is great for doing what it's supposed to do - java builds and deployment. If you meed to do C or C++, use make or Imake - they work great for that. Do you only have one wrench at your house? I bet not. Use ALL the tools you have, don't try to make one tool do everything (i.e., don't try to use Ant as a 'make' replacement.) In our shop we use Imake to do C++ and Ant to do java. The two peacefully co-exist because we don't force either one to try do the other's job...
