From: Stefan Lang <langstefan@...>
Date: 2005-07-30T03:52:29+09:00
Subject: [ANN] Rant 0.4.4

Rant is a flexible build tool written entirely in Ruby,
similar to Rake.

== What's new in this release?

The best new feature in this release is, that you can tell Rant
to use MD5 checksums instead of file modification times to
detect file changes.

To enable this feature, just put:

      import "md5"

at the top of the Rantfile.
Perhaps this will be the default sometime.

== Minor improvements:

* Rant is Ruby 1.8.0 compatible now.
* As always, a few bugfixes.

I'd appreciate suggestions about new features, names, etc.
If you are interested in Rant, join the mailing list:
http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/make-cafe

== Installing Rant

You can install Rant as a RubyGem:
    % gem install --remote rant

or download the package from 
RubyForge(http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=615)
and install with install.rb:
    % ruby install.rb

== More about Rant

The equivalent to a Makefile for make is the Rantfile. An
Rantfile is actually a valid Ruby script that is read by the
rant command.

Rant currently features:
* Defining custom tasks
* Automated packaging, testing and RDoc generation for Ruby
  applications and libraries.
* Primitive support for compiling C# sources portably with csc, cscc
  and mcs.
* Dependency checking for C/C++ source files.
* Creating gzipped tar and zip archives — without installing
  additional software.
* Optional recognition of file changes based on MD5 checksums instead
  of file modification times.
* Multiple buildfiles (e.g. one per directory).
* The rant-import command creates a monolithic rant script,
  so you don't depend on an rant installation anymore.

... and more, visit http://make.ruby-co.de

Rubyforge page:: http://rubyforge.org/projects/make/

BTW, if no one objects, future versions of Rant will be released
under a more liberal licence (BSD or MIT style).

-- 
Stefan