The next revision of Ant, version 1.7.0, is available in beta from Apache. This version introduces resource frameworks and antlibs, which are user-defined external tasks, built with XML and provided as extension points. Ant is by far the most popular compilation tool available for Java, so updates have a lot of impact. With the external resource capability, ant will be far easier to extend with custom tasks.

I'm just happy that the task now supports JUnit 4.

I'm just happy that the task now supports JUnit 4.

It doesnt support it perfectly, because it also has to work with junit3.x. It runs junit4 tests using the junit4 'legacy' entry point. -the reports arent perfect, because it gets the name of the junit4 'legacy' bridge in there. -the reports don't handle the 'ignored' annotations The problem is, there is no way to support all of junit4 and not break every single junit3 build on the planet. As junit4 is java1.5+ only, we expect junit3 to remain around for a long time. As well as the updated junit task, we've been talking with the junit team about how they could do their own task, one that would be almost a drop-in replacement for , but integrate properly with junit4. It may also steal some of the stuff I've been doing for the smartfrog junit runner, which can serialize results over the wire, and save test reports to an XHTML format. That means that we can run tests remotely and save the results straight into human-readable form; no need for a post-run XSLT transform. -steve

Joseph, it might be nice to add a link to the new features in 1.7. Kind regards Neil