Interesting article. I bookmarked it and will read it later.

Two years ago I had to use Ant a lot for building our application. This is much 
complexer than just copying and compiling.

I started to discuss the uglyness of XML for Ant in the Sun Java forum. 
Nonetheless I used Ant without much hatred. But I didn't change my mind on XML 
for that purpose.

Maybe if you have very simple build scripts and you are easy to satisfy, then 
Ant's XML won't hurt much. But if the scripts are complex and thus can't hide 
its scripting nature, then you pay with bugs and its consequences, of which 
many would have been avoided by a scripting language.


Matt Benson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Here's a link to Terence Parr's "Humans 
should not
have to grok XML" article:

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-sbxml.html

In it he explains the distinction between XML as a
data representation format, the use for which it was
AFAIK intended, vs. as an explicit interface for human
consumption.  Regardless of your own position, I found
it an interesting read.  Terence is an example of a
noted personality in the OSS community who develops in
Java but has never touched Ant precisely _because_ of
its XML interface.  So such developers definitely
exist, thought it's quite possible he is the only one
whose aversion to human-targeted XML is a strong
enough deterrent in and of itself.  ;)

-Matt

--- "Scot P. Floess"  wrote:

> I'd have to agree with Rob...  Have you ever looked
> at Voice XML?  It took is scripting but using XML as
> the "markup" language....
> 
> What is your aversion to XML with regards to it as a
> scripting language?  I personally like it...
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> >From: "Anderson, Rob (Global Trade)"
> 
> >Sent: Feb 8, 2007 12:58 PM
> >To: Ant Users List 
> >Subject: RE: Python implementation for Ant
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: Hans Schwaebli
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> >> Sent: Wednesday, February 07, 2007 3:01 AM
> >> To: Ant Users List
> >> Subject: Python implementation for Ant
> >> 
> >> What do you think about the XML format used for
> writing Ant 
> >> scripts? I don't like it.
> >>    
> >>   What about writing Ant scripts in a script
> language like 
> >> Python or Jython instead of writing them in XML?
> I think it 
> >> would be much more productive.
> >>    
> >>   There seems to be a private project for this,
> but it is not 
> >> official, not from Apache.
> >
> >I have no issues with XML. It seems to work well
> for me. It is easy to
> >read, understand, and maintain build files in XML
> format. I have no
> >desire to change the way I am currently writing
> build files.
> >
> >-Rob Anderson
> >
> >
>
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> 
> 
> Scot P. Floess
> 27 Lake Royale
> Louisburg, NC  27549
> 
> (252) 478-8087 (Home)
> (919) 754-4592 (Work)
> 
> Chief Architect JPlate      
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/jplate
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> http://sourceforge.net/projects/javapim
> 
>
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