On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 9:36 PM, Dean Schulze <[email protected]>wrote:
> > Chapter 15 does look a lot better than Chapter 6. I don't know why they > called Chapter 6 a quick start. It doesn't help you get started at all. > > I'm a little worried when you say that you've already spent two days > learning gradle. I would expect that with a high level of experience with > Java and Ant of Maven that someone learning a new build system could be > productive with it in a couple of hours. If it takes more than that > something is wrong. Either it's too complex or not well documented. Ah, don't worry, must be my dense head. On the other hand not every build is exactly standard, and so that might contribute a bit to the delay. If you're interested enough, you can search the list archives to find out what I'm trying to achieve. > > That is why I decided not to use Maven. It seemed like an exercise in > unnecessary complexity. > Unnecessary complexity: depends on what you want to do. Some years ago, I was responsible for changing all the builds we had in the company from Ant to Maven. Conclusion: Ant is easier in terms of it does exactly what you tell it to do. The problem is that everybody tells something different. So don't expect people to find their way easy around your build. And definitely don't expect them to change something in the build itself. Maven is a lot better in that regard, because it gives you a set of guidelines, that you actually end up not breaking very often (if your project/architecture moves within what Maven is designed for). The big problem with Maven is to tell it to do something that it wasn't designed for. You cannot just define another task that copies A to B. That's why Gradle is nice. It gives you both. You have to find your way around it, but I'm pleased by the flexibility. > So maybe the first six chapters are a red herring. I'll take a look at > some of the other chapters and see if they make more sense. > > > > --- On *Tue, 5/26/09, Daniel <[email protected]>* wrote: > > > From: Daniel <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [gradle-user] Is there an example for migrating a J2EE project > from Ant to Gradle? > To: [email protected] > Date: Tuesday, May 26, 2009, 6:29 PM > > Someone is probably going to respond in more detail, but as a first > pointer, look at Chapter 15: Java Plugin in combination with Chapter 24: > Multiproject builds (if you have separate cohesive units that have to be > built in isolation and might depend on each other). > > And you can still use pure ant with > > task myTask << { > ant { > get(src: 'http://somewhere.com/somefile.txt', > dest: 'here.txt' > ) > } > } > > I'm still learning (2 days in), but Gradle is pretty amazing and has great > potential. > > Cheers, > Daniel > > [1] http://www.gradle.org/0.6/docs/userguide/java_plugin.html > [2] http://www.gradle.org/0.6/docs/userguide/multi_project_builds.html > > On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 7:16 AM, Dean Schulze > <[email protected]<http://mc/[email protected]> > > wrote: > >> >> Those links are the same material that is in the user guide, which I've >> read twice and still don't have a clue about how to use gradle to build a >> j2ee project. >> >> I've written many Ant builds, some very complex, but your documentation >> doesn't give me a clue about how to do basic things like compile .java >> files. >> >> The problem is that chapter 6 is cryptic. A typical J2EE project has >> source files that get compiled with javac, web artifacts like .html and .jsp >> pages that simply get moved to a directory in the .war structure, and >> deployment descriptors. >> >> I don't see any of that in your documentation. >> >> How do I compile my .java files? How do I specify the src/ and output >> directories? How do I move artifacts into WEB-INF/lib, etc? >> >> Ant, for all of its shortcomings is at least intuitive. The attributes >> and child elements of <javac>, <jar>, and <war> correspond to the underlying >> tools. Ant falls flat on its face, however, with simple things like doing >> if ... else... You can't change the value of a property, and lots of other >> things. That's really what I'm looking for from gradle. >> >> If chapter 6 is the "normal" way to do things in gradle, then you've made >> very straight forward things cryptic. If I wanted that I'd use Maven. >> >> >> >> >> --- On *Sat, 5/23/09, Adam Murdoch >> <[email protected]<http://mc/[email protected]> >> >* wrote: >> >> >> From: Adam Murdoch >> <[email protected]<http://mc/[email protected]> >> > >> Subject: Re: [gradle-user] Is there an example for migrating a J2EE >> project from Ant to Gradle? >> To: [email protected]<http://mc/[email protected]> >> Date: Saturday, May 23, 2009, 12:01 AM >> >> >> >> Dean Schulze wrote: >> >> I'd like to start adopting gradle by making a gradle build to parallel >> the Ant build*.xml files that I use for my J2EE projects. >> >> I've looked at the user guide and the java examples that come with gradle, >> but they're not much help. The 2 examples aren't remotely like a typical >> J2EE project, and the user guide isn't much better. >> >> >> The Java multi-project sample is intended to be a typical J2EE project - >> it produces a WAR file and a bunch of JAR files. I'm surprised that you >> think it isn't remotely like one. How can we improve things to make this >> more clear, do you think? What's different to your J2EE project? >> >> There's a walk-through of this sample at >> http://www.gradle.org/0.6/docs/userguide/tutorial_java_projects.html >> >> If you don't want to split your build up into multiple projects, you could >> use the web application quick start sample. There's an (incomplete) >> walk-through at >> http://www.gradle.org/0.6/docs/userguide/web_project_tutorial.html >> >> One thing these samples don't do is produce an EAR task. You can either >> use the Zip task, or Ant's Ear task in your build. You might want to have a >> look at http://www.gradle.org/0.6/docs/userguide/java_plugin.html#N112B3for >> information about adding archives to a project. >> >> Does anyone have an example of how to use Gradle to build typical J2EE >> project - a .ear containing multiple .wars and .jars? >> >> Thanks. >> >> >> > >
