Python or Ant

[John Bokma]

Steve Holden <steve at holdenweb.com> writes:

Apologies for the piggy back, my Usenet provider can't get the OP's
message.

> gslindstrom at gmail.com wrote:
>> My company is looking at creating a tool to allow us to define and
>> manage a process for each job we run (a typical job may be look on a
>> customers ftp site for a file, download it, decrypt it and load it into
>> our database). We would like something which would allow us to glue
>> together various existing processes we currently use into a single unit
>> with multiple steps. Along the way, this new routine would need to log
>> its progress and be able to report and even handle errors. A coworker
>> has suggested we look at Ant ("Another Neat Tool") and, though it looks
>> promising, I have reservations. If I recall correctly, it was intended
>> as a replacement for "Make" and I worry that we may be trying to force
>> Ant to be something it is not.

It was intended as a replacement. But you can use it for many other
things, without making it feel out of place in my opinion. I do use it
exactly the way you describe for various tasks: calling external
programs, uploading a file, etc. My personal site, see sig, is generated
by a Perl program, and uploaded by another, and some other programs have
to run as well, and all is glued together using ant. If I modify an XML
file (my site is defined using XML), I do:

  ant local

to update a local version.

If I am happy with how it looks, I do

  ant upload

Ant makes several things really easy. The things I do with it would take
me more lines in either Perl or Python. So I use Perl (or Python) when
it makes things easier, and ant to glue everything together if that's
easier.

-- 
John Bokma                                                               j3b

Hacking & Hiking in Mexico -  http://johnbokma.com/
http://castleamber.com/ - Perl & Python Development