Re: Next NAnt/NAntContrib TODO Tasks

----- Original Message -----
From: Stefan Bodewig <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Cc: =

Sent: Friday, October 28, 2011 2:17 AM
Subject: Re: [nant-dev] Next NAnt/NAntContrib TODO Tasks

On 2011-10-26, Ryan Boggs wrote:

> On Wed, Oct 26, 2011 at 8:53 AM, Stefan Bodewig
> <[email protected]> wrote:

>> When I worked on the log4net release I cursed NAnt's lack of a <mapper>
>> so a big +1 for this. =A0I also miss <macrodef>. =A0Badly.
> I should add <macrodef> too, eh?

> This may be my Ant bias.=A0 log4net's build file is a big mess of
> copy-paste and I think macrodef would help, but maybe there is a
> NAnt-idiomatic way of fixing that without macrodef.=A0 It looks as if
> "call"ing a target is something you'd do more lightly and more often in
> NAnt than in Ant.

In Ant if you "call" a target and return, the variables set in that inner t=
arget aren't available in the outer scope. =A0Therefore you can't easily cr=
eate "call"-able, reusable functions that return stuff, you can only create=
 helpful things that do things. =A0Thus, in Ant, you create insane dependen=
cy chains. =A0The way around this in Ant is <macrodef>.

In NAnt if you "call" something and return, all the variables set in the in=
ner scope still exist. =A0Therefore I can create helpful "figure out the pa=
th" call-able targets or <foreach> around a call target or intermingle in e=
ffect function calls with pre- and post-processing code.

I find NAnt's paradigm more helpful and easier to understand, though I unde=
rstand why Ant chose to scope properties the way it did. =A0In the end, hav=
ing an NAnt <macrodef> would be very useful, but it'd be less useful to tho=
se who understand the difference between property scopes between the produc=
ts and more useful to people trying to copy/paste functionality from Ant.

Rob

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