On Tue, 16 Sep 2003, Mahesh Chittur wrote:

: I was trying to make package for argouml-0.14. In order to compile the
: argouml-0.14, i need the apache-ant package. But, the package present under
: NetBSD does not contain the jar file, (optional.jar) which is needed for the
: compilation of argouml-0.14. In order to build optional.jar file in
: apache-ant. I need few other packages like jdepends, junit, etc...

Hey Java package folks!

Y'all wanted an example of why building Java from source is not as good as
taking prebuilt JAR binaries where available?  "See above."  If apache-ant
came from the more commonly used *binary* distribution of Ant, Mahesh would
already have the full-featured optional.jar ready to go -- without having to
build with junit and all that other glue goop.

I have a pending update to jakarta-tomcat in the pipeline that will switch
it to using the binary distribution.  In that vein, I strongly suggest that
pkgsrc folks consider using binary distributions rather than building from
source for all Java packages where prebuilt binaries are feasible.

(There's a reason that nearly all Java package users download prebuilt
binaries.  Hint:  It's not just for runtime convenience.)

-- 
-- Todd Vierling <tv@duh.org> <tv@pobox.com>