Added some more stuff, about 50% done now.

git-svn-id: https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/ant/core/trunk@269044 13f79535-47bb-0310-9956-ffa450edef68
24 years ago · 21e82d78a0
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+++ b/docs/ant2/features.html
@@ -3,9 +3,21 @@
  <head>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en-us">
    <title>Ant2 feature list</title>

      <style type="text/css">
        .comment {
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    <p class="comment">If something looks like this, this is either a
    request for input or a &quot;REVISIT&quot; marker or similar.</p>

    <h1>Ant2 Goals</h1>

    <p>Even though Ant2 is expected to be incompatible with the
@@ -35,7 +47,9 @@
      hidden behind facade tasks.</li>

      <li>properties and data types will be unified so that they share
      the same namespace and inheritance rules.</li>
      the same namespace and inheritance rules. <i
      class="comment">Need to talk about how ${} expansion works for
      filesets and so on.</i></li>

    </ul>

@@ -50,10 +64,19 @@

      <li>add scoping rules for properties so that not all of them
      will be inherited by sub-builds, only those that have been
      specified explicitly.</li>
      specified explicitly. <i class="comment">Fill in details once
      they&apos;ve been sorted out.</i></li>

    </ul>

    <p>The front-ends for Ant2 shall be smart enough to automatically
    detect the required libraries (like <code>tools.jar</code>), the
    use of native scripts shall be kept to a minimum.</p>

    <p>Build file writers can attach a message to targets that will be
    presented to the user if that target is going to be skipped (based
    on the if/unless attribute of the target).</p>

    <h2>Extensibility</h2>

    <p>Ant2 like Ant1 uses build files written in XML as its main
@@ -68,16 +91,40 @@
    Ant. Ant will automatically know all tasks contained in task
    libraries that have been placed into a special directory - in
    addition task libraries can be referenced and used in a build file
    explicitly.</p>
    explicitly. <i class="comment">Fill in details once they&apos;ve been
    sorted out.</i></p>

    <p>It has become apparent, that several &quot;aspects&quot; of
    tasks are so common that task writers find themselves duplicating
    code all over again - things like classpath handling or &quot;do
    we stop the build if this task fails?&quot; functionality for
    example. Ant2 will provide a way to let the user attach an
    &quot;aspect handler&quot; to a project - all attributes that live
    in a certain namespace are going to be passed to this handler. <i
    class="comment">Need to talk about TaskContext here.</i></p>

    <p>Ant2 will farm out common functionality from tasks into utility
    classes so that task writers can benefit from a tested and stable
    framework - they shouldn&apos;t need to deal with existing tasks
    directly (like some tasks &quot;abuse&quot; the
    <code>&lt;touch&gt;</code> task in Ant1).</p>

    <h1>New/Modified Features</h1>

    <p>Ant2 will run the build process fully dynamically, which means
    that task won&apos;t be instantiated before they are actually being run
    and <code>${}</code> expansion will see the very latest value of a
    property. It will be possible to reassign values of properties via
    a built-in task.</p>

    <h2>Compatibility with Ant1</h2>

    <p>Ant2 is going to break Ant1 in several ways:</p>

    <ul>

      <li>Tasks written for Ant1 won't work in Ant2 as the API of
      Ant's core and the names of utility classes are going to
      <li>Tasks written for Ant1 won&apos;t work in Ant2 as the API of
      Ant&apos;s core and the names of utility classes are going to
      change. There will probably be adaptors and utility classes to
      ease the transition for task writers.</li>

@@ -95,8 +142,73 @@

    </ul>

    <h2>Support Integration of Ant Into Other Tools</h2>

    <p>Ant2 will have a clear separation between the front-end that is
    responsible for user interactions, the object model that
    represents the project to build and the part of Ant that runs the
    build process itself <i class="comment">Name that TaskEngine,
    ProjectEngine, ExecutionEngine or what?</i>. This separation is
    expected to ease the integration of Ant (or parts of it) into
    other products.</p>

    <p>Ant2 itself will include a command line front-end and Antidote
    will become the GUI front-end to it. Other front-ends like a
    servlet front-end are expected <i class="comment">outside of
    Ant&apos;s core</i> as well.</p>

    <p>In addition to this separation, the following features should
    help people who want to integrate Ant into their products:</p>

    <ul>

      <li>It will be possible to cancel a running build process.</li>

    </ul>

    <h2>More Control for Users and Build File Writers</h2>

    <p>Ant2 will use a <code>BuildListener</code> concept similar to
    the one of Ant1 but may provide a richer set of events. It will be
    possible to attach and detach listeners to a build process from
    within the build file and to modify the behavior of attached
    listeners.</p>


    <h2>Documentation System</h2>

    <p>All tasks will be documented in XML files using a common DTD <i
    class="comment">Still need to define it</i> - task libraries are
    expected to include the documentation using this DTD inside the
    library itself.</p>

    <h2>Better Subbuild Handling</h2>

    <p class="comment">Is there something beyond &quot;should become
    better&quot; right now?</p>

    <h1>Rejected Features</h1>

    <p>This is list is not complete, it just highlights some of the
    rejected features and tries to explain why they&apos;ve been
    rejected.</p>

    <p>For a complete listing of all requested features, see <a
    href="requested-features.html">requested-features.html</a>. The
    discussion on all topics can be followed in the <a
    href="http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=ant-dev&r=1&w=2">archives
    for ant-dev</a> in threads starting from 2001-03-21 - the subject
    lines contained either <code>[VOTE]</code> or
    <code>[DISC]</code>.</p>

    <h1>Ideas for New Tasks and Tools</h1>

    <p>Please refer to <a
    href="requested-features.html">requested-features.html</a> in the
    section &quot;I. Things that don&apos;t affect the core but are
    requests for new tasks or enhancements to existing tasks.&quot;
    for this.</p>

    <hr>
      <p align="center">$Id$</p>
      <p align="center">Copyright &copy; 2001 Apache Software