Re: Things to do before the next Ant release?!

On 2026-08-11, Emmanuel Bourg wrote:

> Thinking further about it, instead of DateUtils.getNow() I'd suggest
> adding a Project.getBuildDate() or Project.getDate() method. That
> looks more natural and clearly communicates what the date
> represents. Also the fact that getNow() returns a date that is not now
> is a bit counterintuitive.

True. I'd opt for getBuildDate.

> Regarding Project.isReproducibleBuild(), I’m not sure it's needed. One
> could argue that builds should always be reproducible by default, so
> there shouldn't be a strong use case for querying that state
> explicitly.

I've got such a case in the CycloneDX Antlib. The CycloneDX
specification is explicitly designed to create non-reproducible SBOMs
(the serial number is expected to change with every creation even if all
other content stays the same[1]). Right now (i.e. in the git main
branch) I only "break" the spec if the user explicitly asks for it.

Stefan

[1] https://cyclonedx.org/docs/1.7/json/#serialNumber - I just see I
could completely skip it and conform to the spec, but I'm not sure tools
really treat it as optional.