Marko,
>
> But it seems to me that Ant has a positive side too:
I agree that there are positive reasons to use Ant (that is why it was
done in the first place). It is just that in retrospect, I don't
believe the pluses outweigh the minuses.
>
> * People with Java background probably know Ant better that
> 'make'. Ant seems to become 'build tool of choice' in
> Java world.
Perhaps, but I'm not convinced that either of these arguments is true.
I have seen make used by more projects than ant, and a developer
building postgres from source, certainly needs to be familiar with make.
>
> * When Ant is set up, it takes care of all local Java
> environment, so we in PostgreSQL source do not need
> to bother about it.
I'm not sure what you mean here. Can you provide an example?
>
> * In Ant the build file will be much less complex
> than a Makefile with same functionality. And same
> time in Ant it is much easier to check local
> Java internal setup.
>
I agree that this is true, but I think a much better job can be done to
minimize the added complexity. I have looked at the old makefile and it
was quite complex. But I have ideas on how to reduce that complexity.
Basically I want to trade off a little more complexity on the part of
the developers of jdbc, for less complexity for users to install and build.
thanks,
--Barry
