| [platform-ant-dev] Moving Ant to the run and debug launch groups? |
Ant support in Eclipse has always been provided via the external tools launch group, which is a debatable placement, since Ant support is provided in Eclipse and is not actually an external tool.
That being said, in 3.6 we are examining if we should move Ant to the Run and Debug launch groups. There are many benefits to this move but three of the most notable are:
1. You run an Ant build, not an external tool that runs an Ant build
2. You can debug Ant build files, but this functionality is quite hidden without a "debug external tools" launch menu (or the like)
3. we can remove a lot of unnecessary code hacks currently in the launching code to prevent Ant from showing up in "normal" launch groups
On the flip-side, there is the argument that users used to seeing Ant in external tools might think the support is gone if it is moved.
Thoughts / feedback should be added to bug https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=80552.
Michael Rennie