Aap version 0.900, the first beta release

Aap version 0.900 has been released. This is the another milestone for
the A-A-P project. The Aap program is make on steroids. It does everything that make does, has a
powerful script language build-in and has integrated internet support.
You can use it to:

- Build a program, on multiple platforms and in several variants
- Maintain a web site (Aap is used for the Vim web site)
- Download and install an application (like FreeBSD ports)
- Obtain a module from CVS, update files in CVS
- Generate and filter files

Most of these things can be done with a recipe of just a few lines.
Have a look at the examples: http://www.a-a-p.org/examples.html .

The Aap recipe works better than a Makefile in many ways:

- Uses signatures to avoid trouble with timestamps; restoring an old
version of a file causes recompiling
- Integrated support for up- and downloading
- Integrated support for CVS (other version control systems can be added)
- Python script can be used for more complicated tasks
- Messages are brief, a log file contains the details
- Reduces the need for shell scripts, improves portability
- Automatically figures out dependencies for C programs
- Simple syntax: mostly like a Makefile but avoids the need for line
continuation backslashes, spaces in a file name are possible
- Good support for a project with multiple directories

Aap is written in Python. It currently runs on any Unix system with
Python 1.5 or later, MS-Windows and Mac OS X.

WHAT IS THE A-A-P PROJECT?

A-A-P makes it easy to locate, download, build and install software. It
also supports browsing source code, developing programs, managing
different versions and distribution of software and documentation. This
means that A-A-P is useful both for users and for developers.

The Aap program is able to execute recipes. Another part of the A-A-P project
is Agide, the A-A-P GUI IDE, which makes it possible for existing
tools to work together. For example: to use Vim with gdb for debugging,
lookup remote documentation with the cross referencer, preview a TeX
file, etc.

Aap is almost ready for the 1.0 release. It already works very well, but more testing needs to be done and the documentation needs to be cleaned up.
There might still be a few problems, use with care.

A-A-P is open source under the GNU GPL. You are welcome to help
improving A-A-P!

LINKS

Home page: http://www.a-a-p.org
Manual HTML: http://www.a-a-p.org/exec/index.html
Manual PDF: http://www.a-a-p.org/exec/exec.pdf
Maillists: http://www.a-a-p.org/maillist.html
Freshmeat: http://freshmeat.net/projects/a-a-p/