This brings up a point to consider if a rewrite is desired. Ant has
always avoided relying on external libraries because it is usually the
first thing in the build chain. It can't have any dependencies itself if
it is to be self-building. There are tasks that require external
libraries to be compiled, yes, but they are all optional. That is why
there is a bootstrap build before the full build. The only libraries you
can rely on being there are the ones that ship with the JRE.
This could change in Ant 2 if people wanted but I think we'd need a
strategy for it. For example, there was a lot of talk at one point
about moving the package name from org.apache.tools.ant.* to
org.apache.ant.*. Doing this would allow both Ant 1.x and Ant 2 to exist
in the same program (like IDEs), and it would allow a bootstrap Ant 1.x
to build Ant 2. Doing that would allow the use of libraries.
I'm sure there could be other solutions as well, but I don't think
anyone should automatically assume that non-optional libraries will be
available until it is decided that that will happen. Assuming anything
happens.
On 2/13/2012 12:02 PM, Jeffrey E Care wrote:
Mansour Al Akeel <mansour.alak...@gmail.com> wrote on 02/13/2012
01:57:56 PM:
> From: Mansour Al Akeel <mansour.alak...@gmail.com>
> To: Ant Developers List <dev@ant.apache.org>
> Cc: Stefan Bodewig <bode...@apache.org>
> Date: 02/13/2012 01:58 PM
> Subject: Re: NIO 2.0 == Ant 2.0? was Re: Java NIO support
>
> Bruce,
> In fact I was thinking about the same thing. The idea of forking Ant and
> rewrite parts of it to use Java 7 NIO, and introduce java plugin frame
> work http://jpf.sourceforge.net/crossed my mind few times.
Why JPF instead of OSGi or whatever extensibility mechanism is working
it's way through the JCP for Java 8? IMO the idea of basing an Ant
re-write on some dubiously supported clone of Eclipse's plugin
mechanism from 8 years ago isn't very appealing.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Jeffrey E. (Jeff) Care
_ca...@us.ibm.com_ <mailto:ca...@us.ibm.com>
IBM WebSphere Application Server
WAS Release Engineering
WebSphere Mosiac
WebSphere Brandmark
