Re: Here is my Centipede scepticism

> 	I think Centipede is fundamentally wrong in two
> 	ways:
> 
> 	1. It is trying to solve something that isn't a
> 	    problem.
> 
> I love ant, ant scripting it easy, ant tasks are easy & the documentation
> clear. I agree with all that. I made my ant scripts do everything but make
> coffee, they'd FTP, they'd mail, they'd extract version out of class via
> byte code, they'd compile JDK1.3 or JDK 1.4, they'd do it all. I was proud
> of my ant prowess, it was cool to hack ant script... but I got tired of ant
> scripting once I got about 1000 lines of ant, or when I was on my tenth
> project where I'd cut-n-paste & tweak, or I'd copy. I tried persuading
> others in my team to chip in, and use it for their projects, they couldn't
> grok my ant -- it was too much. I'd created an unmanageable behemoth.

Are you saying that now, suddenly, when you've started
to use Centipede, others in your team are chipping in,
modifying your build environment?

What I'm saying is that, everyone must learn the basics
of ant anyway, since Centipede builds upon ant, and since
ant is industry standard these days.

Now your team members also need to learn Centipede, and
you claim that is an improvement?

> Then I started working in open source, other people projects. Their ant
> scripts were cool, but hard for me to grok.

Harder than, say, code in general?

> Ant is great, but having the power of ant w/o having to hand write ant, is
> [IMHO] priceless..

But, that was what I tried to explain in my original
email, my javadoc ant target needs tweaking anyway.
And so would most other targets anyway. So, what have
you gained? Nothing, it seems to me. On the contrary,
since you've forced your co-workers to use something
that wasn't necessary.

> 	2. It is trying to automate/simplify something
> 	    that is always going to have to be customized
> 	    by hand.
> 
> Sounds like an argument against other build tools, not Centipede. Centibuild
> is just ant w/ optional imports. You want your hand crafted ant script, then
> paste it in. Centipede compliments ant w/ some metadata parsing into
> properties, w/ optional/re-usable scriptlets, it doesn't stop you from using
> plain ant.

It is NOT just adding something without the cost, since
it requires your co-workers to learn yet nother tool,
when ant in most cases is just fine.

Mats




-------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by:  Etnus, makers of TotalView, The best
thread debugger on the planet. Designed with thread debugging features
you've never dreamed of, try TotalView 6 free at www.etnus.com.