example of using ant to drive a gcj build

[John Murga]

Hey

AM> I'd like to retract anything I said about XML being more readable.
AM> XML is only more readable if you're dealing with tree-structured data,
AM> which build files generally aren't.  I was wrong about this.

I dunno, Ant build files are definitely more hierarchical than Make files,
I think the main issue is that GCJ is a tool for java development... and Ant
seems to have become the standard java build tool.

So are you going to support the standard ?

Personally I prefer the XML syntax... it gives the build files a clearer
structure that can be understood instantly by many tools, this can make
make the build files even easier to understand and develop.

In the SCO days I was writing Make files that built things from SCCS sources,
now it is Ant build files that build from CVS sources... it is all the same.

Forgetting about the XML syntax, Ant is where it is now not just because it
uses XML, but because it has many java centric features to make the build
process more straight forward... Many java build tasks are harder to represent
in a Make file, as a consequence there may not be an accepted way of doing them
in Make so you'll probably loose clarity and consistency as people re-invent
the wheel...

Just my two cents...

Cheers
JohnM