Hi all,
I have been listening to the discussions about Ant and the build system.
I think that the discussion is missing a point, which I will try to make here :-)
1. Standard
The Ant build system is making its way to be a "de facto" standard for building java applications as
it is built for the purpose.
2. Integration
In the apache cocoon project, the ant build system jar is shipped along with the distribution and
does not require a separate installation of Ant on the target system. The Ant shell script is customized
so that the JAVA_HOME environment is the only parameter to set.
In the case of postgreSQL driver this could be done by invoking the "pgcustom" ant build from the gnu configure/make
when configuring with the "--with-java" parameter.
3. Platforms
I´m sure everyone agrees that providing a working java compiler should be out of scope for the build system.
Since the ant jar is shipped along, with its own build scripts (.bat and .sh) the build of the driver need not to differ
for the platform used.
4. Other things not particulary related to the build
The build script should, IMHO, NOT replace good implementation and structured design of the driver packages.
A little note on the server and the driver as a substitute for Oracle.
Everytime a get a chance, I spread the word of this wonderful database and people wonder "why not MySQL?"
I tell them to look a the benchmarking test made by different users, to look at the SQL 9x compliance and
to realize the size of the devel community for pgsql and the jdbc driver.
As the postgis project evolves with its spatially enabling extension to the driver, the driver´s compliance
to the API compared to commercial dmses will be IMHO one of the success factors for providing a rock solid
open source alternative. I Can´t help it, I Just love this Server AND Driver.
Thanx for listening :-)
Per-Olof Norén
Stockholm
