[ale] Build servers?

[JK]

Charles Shapiro wrote:
> Hmm.  Much of my day job consists of managing a build server.
> 
> The classical solution for this kind of problemo is ant ( 
> http://ant.apache.org/ ) plus some kind of manager script like 
> CruiseControl, Maven, anthill, or a simple shell script kicked off by a 
> cron job ( as you currently have it).  Apache ant is kind of a 
> super-duper make(1) language, which you can use to code a large variety 
> of build and test tasks.  You'll heed a recent java implementation on 
> your build machine to use it, but you can make stuff in about any 
> language. We're currently using it to compile a big complex hideous C++ 
> application, then package it in a variety of different ways.  We nuke 
> 'n' pave about a million lines of source and then check it out from 
> subversion on every build.

I'll second the ant props.  When I first saw an ant build script,
I thought, "Ewwwww, XML..."  But after having forced myself to learn
the tool, I've decided it really is more flexible and easier to
manage than make and its derivatives.  OTOH I've only used it to
build Java stuff.

-- JK

-- 
"What can be asserted without evidence can also be
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