Bruce Atherton <br...@callenish.com> wrote on 02/13/2012 01:25:30 PM:
> I actually wanted to discuss Java 7 on the list. I went through its > features a while ago and got really excited when I read through NIO 2.0. > It does so much that Ant has to struggle with, and so much that Ant > can't do. > > I spent some time starting to implement a very simple (only a few tasks) > new version of Ant that started from Java 7. Personal issues have taken > me out of the game for a while, but I've still been wondering, could > Java 7 and NIO 2.0 be a good reason to create Ant 2.0? > > ... > > It could be a way to sweep away the kind of cruft that is holding up the > release and to redesign Ant to reflect all the lessons learned about how > to build software in the last 10 years. Or it could be I'm the only one > who read through the NIO 2.0 features and instantly thought about > rewriting Ant. I think you have to enumerate what you want to accomplish with a complete rewrite and what the compelling reasons are for such an undertaking. I agree that there are many compelling features in NIO 2 that I would like to see leveraged in Ant but I have to say that I'm not seeing a straight line from NIO 2 to a complete rewrite of Ant. For a less drastic approach maybe we could re-write only those tasks that would benefit the most from NIO 2's features. Put them in a different package and perhaps even put them in their own antlib. Putting task implementations to the side, what is there in the core of Ant that would benefit from NIO 2 or other parts of JDK 7?
