[Nant-users] Ant vs. NAnt

Discussion:

r***@connected.com

2003-07-17 20:12:24 UTC

Hi,
I'm trying to decide whether to use Ant or NAnt as my new build tool. My
company is currently a Windows only shop, but we plan to go
multi-platform(Mac\Linux\Win) in the next several months.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Ryan

Ian MacLean

2003-07-19 04:06:24 UTC

Permalink

Depends on your development environment. If you will be doing a
significant amount of java development then Ant is what you're after.
For .net development NAnt is a better choice.

Does multi-platform mean gcc or higher level languages like java, c# or
python ?

Ian

Post by r***@connected.com
Hi,
I'm trying to decide whether to use Ant or NAnt as my new build tool.
My company is currently a Windows only shop, but we plan to go
multi-platform(Mac\Linux\Win) in the next several months.
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Ryan

r***@connected.com

2003-07-21 14:29:09 UTC

Permalink

At the moment we use MS Dev 6.0, but we will be converting to .Net soon. Our
product line is currently windows only, but we intend to port to Linux and
Mac in the near future. I don't yet know what the development environment
will look like at that point.

Nant is obviously not suited to Mac and Linux builds. Given this fact, and
my desire to have one set of build files to handle all platforms, it seems
Ant is the way to go.

Thanks,
Ryan

-----Original Message-----
From: ***@ActiveState.com [mailto:***@ActiveState.com]
Sent: Saturday, July 19, 2003 12:06 AM
To: ***@connected.com
Cc: nant-***@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: [Nant-users] Ant vs. NAnt

Depends on your development environment. If you will be doing a
significant amount of java development then Ant is what you're after.
For .net development NAnt is a better choice.

Does multi-platform mean gcc or higher level languages like java, c# or
python ?

Ian

Erv Walter

2003-07-21 14:59:57 UTC

Permalink

How will you be "porting" your .NET code to Linux and Mac? Mono? If
so, Nant works on Linux with Mono today, and I assume it would work on
Mac as well as soon as Mono works on Mac (if it doesn't already).

The main difference between Nant and Ant is what tasks are available.
Ant inherently knows a lot about how to build Java applications and has
few/no tasks for building .NET applications. Nant inherently knows a
lot about how to build .NET applications and has few/no tasks specific
to Java compilation. Nant's .NET building tasks have been built with
the framework abstracted so that it can build using .NET 1.0, .NET 1.1,
or Mono without changing your build file.

Yes, you could use Ant to build .NET applications, but you may end up
developing a lot of Ant tasks yourself to do so (or you'll be using a
lot of <exec> tasks).

_____

From: ***@connected.com [mailto:***@connected.com]
Sent: Monday, July 21, 2003 9:29 AM
To: ***@ActiveState.com; ***@connected.com
Cc: nant-***@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: RE: [Nant-users] Ant vs. NAnt

At the moment we use MS Dev 6.0, but we will be converting to .Net soon.
Our product line is currently windows only, but we intend to port to
Linux and Mac in the near future. I don't yet know what the development
environment will look like at that point.

Nant is obviously not suited to Mac and Linux builds. Given this fact,
and my desire to have one set of build files to handle all platforms, it
seems Ant is the way to go.

Thanks,
Ryan

-----Original Message-----
From: ***@ActiveState.com [mailto:***@ActiveState.com]
Sent: Saturday, July 19, 2003 12:06 AM
To: ***@connected.com
Cc: nant-***@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: [Nant-users] Ant vs. NAnt

Depends on your development environment. If you will be doing a
significant amount of java development then Ant is what you're after.
For .net development NAnt is a better choice.

Does multi-platform mean gcc or higher level languages like java, c# or

python ?

Ian

Berin Loritsch

2003-07-21 15:20:56 UTC

Permalink

Post by Erv Walter
How will you be "porting" your .NET code to Linux and Mac? Mono? If
so, Nant works on Linux with Mono today, and I assume it would work on
Mac as well as soon as Mono works on Mac (if it doesn't already).
The main difference between Nant and Ant is what tasks are
available. Ant inherently knows a lot about how to build Java
applications and has few/no tasks for building .NET applications. Nant
inherently knows a lot about how to build .NET applications and has
few/no tasks specific to Java compilation. Nant's .NET building tasks
have been built with the framework abstracted so that it can build using
.NET 1.0, .NET 1.1, or Mono without changing your build file.
Yes, you could use Ant to build .NET applications, but you may end
up developing a lot of Ant tasks yourself to do so (or you'll be using a
lot of <exec> tasks).

The latest and greatest ANT does provide a number of .NET tasks. That said,
you would need both Java and .NET to use ANT. ANT will allow you to build
and link files, but there is nothing like the <ndoc/> tag to produce the API
docs. There is a definite tradeoff. That said, ANT has a number of things
that make complex builds possible and has existed longer so it has adapted
to a more generic set of build tasks. Nant is rock solid, and even though it
has not been around as long as ANT, will do everything you need to do for most
.NET based projects. Most people don't need complex build environments, nor
do they really want them.

--
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin

r***@connected.com

2003-07-21 15:34:01 UTC

Permalink

Hmm. I guess I have some more homework to do. I am not familiar with Mono.
I'll have to check it out.

Thanks to all for the information! I may have some more questions soon.

Ryan

-----Original Message-----
From: ***@epicsystems.com [mailto:***@epicsystems.com]
Sent: Monday, July 21, 2003 11:00 AM
To: ***@connected.com; ***@ActiveState.com
Cc: nant-***@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: RE: [Nant-users] Ant vs. NAnt

How will you be "porting" your .NET code to Linux and Mac? Mono? If so,
Nant works on Linux with Mono today, and I assume it would work on Mac as
well as soon as Mono works on Mac (if it doesn't already).

The main difference between Nant and Ant is what tasks are available. Ant
inherently knows a lot about how to build Java applications and has few/no
tasks for building .NET applications. Nant inherently knows a lot about how
to build .NET applications and has few/no tasks specific to Java
compilation. Nant's .NET building tasks have been built with the framework
abstracted so that it can build using .NET 1.0, .NET 1.1, or Mono without
changing your build file.

Yes, you could use Ant to build .NET applications, but you may end up
developing a lot of Ant tasks yourself to do so (or you'll be using a lot of
<exec> tasks).

_____

From: ***@connected.com [mailto:***@connected.com]
Sent: Monday, July 21, 2003 9:29 AM
To: ***@ActiveState.com; ***@connected.com
Cc: nant-***@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: RE: [Nant-users] Ant vs. NAnt

At the moment we use MS Dev 6.0, but we will be converting to .Net soon. Our
product line is currently windows only, but we intend to port to Linux and
Mac in the near future. I don't yet know what the development environment
will look like at that point.

Nant is obviously not suited to Mac and Linux builds. Given this fact, and
my desire to have one set of build files to handle all platforms, it seems
Ant is the way to go.

Thanks,
Ryan

-----Original Message-----
From: ***@ActiveState.com [ mailto:***@ActiveState.com
<mailto:***@ActiveState.com> ]
Sent: Saturday, July 19, 2003 12:06 AM
To: ***@connected.com
Cc: nant-***@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: [Nant-users] Ant vs. NAnt

Depends on your development environment. If you will be doing a
significant amount of java development then Ant is what you're after.
For .net development NAnt is a better choice.

Does multi-platform mean gcc or higher level languages like java, c# or
python ?

Ian