>From: "Ian MacLean" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Sent: Friday, August 13, 2004 12:27 AM
> Gary Feldman wrote:
> >>From: "Ian MacLean" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >>Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2004 6:40 AM
> >>
...
> sorry - I don't buy it. Is
>
> name=value really that much simpler than:
>
> <property name="foo" value="bar" />
The former is three tokens, the latter is nine. (I'm being generous in
counting the quotes as part of the same token as the value they quote.) The
issue isn't conceptual complexity, but simplifying the typing as well as
making it easier to scan through the list, pick out items of interest
visually, find things from printed copies where automated search isn't
available, and simplifying manipulation, at least for those of us who
routinely use traditional UNIX tools. It's easier to write grep, cut, and
sed expressions when the syntax is trivial. But even people who don't use
UNIX tools are still likely to find it easier to type, and as they get
older, easier to read.
>
> The <include> model has the advantages of being a single include
> mechanism and being able to cut and past property definitions directly
> from a build file into a common include file.
True, but implementing property files doesn't cause this to go away. And it
becomes a non-issue for those who choose to do all properties within
property files.
...
> >Also, in Ant properties are always immutable (i.e. readonly). The
...
> hmm - well you'll find varying opinions on this point. I've heard from
> lots of ex Ant users that they find immutable properties to be quite
> restrictive.
I'm sure that's true. But every time I've really had a need to change a
property, it's because I was trying to do the sort of sequential,
program-like processing that really isn't in the NAnt mold - things like
looping through a directory, rather than writing a task or inline script to
do it.
...
> well - since its generally a good idea to only pass a small number of
> property values on the commandline I still don't see the advantages of
> using property files here. How is remembering a file path easier then
> remembering one or two property names ?
For me at least, it's easier to do an ls or find to find the available
property files than to have to read the build file or hope that -projecthelp
has the information. It's also trivial to do something like
for file in props/*.config ; do
nant -f :$file build
done
which picks up new configuration files automatically. Again, this isn't the
type of thing that most MS Windows people do, but it's the type of thing
that I routinely do, and interactively as well as in scripts. (I don't know
how I could survive MS Windows development without Cygwin.)
Gary
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