Ant has been around a long time so it really needs no introduction. Inspiration for this build script came initially from Addy Osmani’s blog on creating a build script for web applications, and later from reviewing the HTML5 Boilerplate’s Ant-Build-Script project. This script is much more specific to BlackBerry WebWorks development and should serve as a great starting point for any developer wanting to introduce a build script to their WebWorks development cycle.

Ant scripts are great for a lot of reasons. Designed for build systems, with simple XML syntax, it’s been around long enough to get a lot of support from IDE’s and to have extensions and tutorials written for it. While there are newer build script tools available, Ant is a good, reliable tool. The IDE integration will be popular with many developers as well, since Eclipse and it’s variants work well with Ant. My current favorite is Sublime Text 2 which has superb build script integration: when set to Ant, pressing ctrl-b will run the default build in the current file’s directory. Besides working with your IDE, build scripts can do all sorts of repeatable operations for you, which can automate routine steps, saving time and maintaining consistency between builds. An obvious requirement for teams, but still a real time saver when working solo.

When I set out to create this script, I wanted something with a wide range of flexibility but also something simple that I could just drop into a project and have it build. I also wanted to be able to update some settings in one place when something changed but support project specific build targets. Lastly, I thought it would be pretty cool to do some Lint checking and code compression at the same time. The result is up here on Github and takes a two part approach. There is a main set of targets and associated tools that goes in one spot and a build.xml file that can be dropped into a WebWorks project. The main file you will setup once and only change when new SDKs are installed. The project file you will put a copy in each project and define a few simple properties to customize the build. Full instructions are included in the Github Readme.

Give it a try today and see what you think. Once you’ve done so, I’d really like to see some forks and pull requests that add additional targets. What are the tools that you would like to see included?

The goal of the NDK is to make you, the developer, more productive in creating Native Applications for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. To accomplish this, the NDK includes tools: a compiler, a linker, the Eclipse-based QNX’s Momentics IDE, and command line tools as well as samples, documentation, and libraries, and is paired with the Developers/Native micro-site. The micro-site is brand new (we also released Android and HTML 5 micro-sites) and provides information on most common actions, and… it also provides pointers to Open Source Components!

As is the case for BlackBerry® WebWorks™, Open Source is a key part of our native story. We use Open Source licenses, and transparent development, to deliver samples that developers can use to kick-start development, or to learn from in general. The NDK comes with a small (4) set of samples, available under an Open Source license. But the micro-site mentioned above links to a larger and growing set of samples all hosted at our GitHub Organization and ready for you to use, or fork and modify.

We are also porting popular Open Source libraries to complement those that are already included in the BlackBerry PlayBook OS. Libraries already available include physics engines like Bullet Physics and Box2DX, scripting languages like Lua, multimedia libraries like OpenAL and SDL, gaming frameworks like Cocos2DX and general-purpose libraries like Boost and Qt. We will continue growing the list and welcome your suggestions!

Also available under an Open Source license are a few new libraries like GamePlay, a new 3D native gaming framework, and TouchMapOverlap.

We are using GitHub to anchor this and other initiatives. All libraries have a homepage that provides additional information on how they apply to the BlackBerry PlayBook OS. In most cases there will also be a code repository that holds the specifics for the port. For example, the OpenAL home page is
blackberry.github.com/ndk/components.html#OpenAL and the repository is github.com/blackberry/OpenAL. Ideally the port specifics will be accepted into the upstream community; what we want is for the library to work on the BlackBerry PlayBook OS out of the box.

We will continue to expand our involvement in the Open Source community; it’s more efficient for us, better for the developers, and creates a much more open communication channel for everyone. For more details on RIM’s Open Source activities, visit http://blackberry.github.com.

P.S. Also check out George’s announcement at WebKit-Dev about our renewed public participation in WebKit!

Do you use GitHub to develop? Have you checked out the BlackBerry GitHub page? Share in the comments!