I think Ant is great, except when it comes to logical thinking. The classpath and path and pathelement and path-like structures lack even the most elementary logic and are used chaotically according to a non-strict non-structured uneven set of principles. I think this is a huge minus for the XML building script which otherwise looks quite good and plain and logical.

To be more specific, I wonder why can path elements reside ousite of tasks as well as within classpath elements, but not under other path elements? The answer is easy: because the idiotic author considered it to be an expression of his lack on intelligence in that fried brain of his. That’s why!!!