Mansour Al Akeel <mansour.alak...@gmail.com> wrote on 02/15/2012 02:05:28 PM:
> Is there something wrong with antlib ? Would OSGI be more convenient and > appealing for programmers to create and contribute their plugins rather > than writing their own build system ? Derivatives of eclipse exists, but > mainly they are just bundles of different plugins. Is this because it's > OSGI ? The only problem I have with the antlib mechanism is that you have to specifically call out the antlib(s) you want to use. That's not a problem in build.xmls, as I would think that most people would want the namespace binding; but consider things like version information & diagnostics providers: presently there's no hook for an antlib to contribute to the version information or diags, even if the JAR containing the antlib is in Ant's lib directory (or elsewhere on the classpath). Fortunately for these cases META-INF/services provides a good enough mechanism. I have a contribution for Ant that will add hook points for antlibs to contribute to the version info & diags but I can't seem to get it cleared through IBM legal :( I don't know of a compelling reason to add a heavyweight plugin mechanism like OSGi. -- JEC
