# What's the current standing of Rant vs. Rake? **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [December 1, 2006, 1:16am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/whats-the-current-standing-of-rant-vs-rake/77856 "2006-12-01T01:16:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mahadewa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/9e8a1a/32.png) [@mahadewa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mahadewa)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2006, 1:16am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/whats-the-current-standing-of-rant-vs-rake/77856/1 "2006-12-01T01:16:02Z")
Rake seems to be used widely and extensively. Rails uses it pretty extensively, as do quite a few of the tools I’m currently reviewing for the purposes of another thread [1]. So what about Rant [2]? It’s certainly not dead: latest release was on November 17, 2006. And it is claimed to be more featureful than Rake [3]. Where is Rant being used (if at all)? Why does Rake seem to be the overwhelming choice? -Chris ---
**Author:** ![mahadewa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/9e8a1a/32.png) [@mahadewa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mahadewa)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2006, 1:39pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/whats-the-current-standing-of-rant-vs-rake/77856/2 "2006-12-04T13:39:08Z")
Further Investigation clears up some of the mystery. The following ML post [1] claims that Rant covers some major use-cases which Rake doesn’t. Key quote: “Rake appears to have no concern with anything outside the Ruby community”. In other words, Rake is dedicated to building Ruby software system, and not interested in building anything else, while Rant is. The author of that post was familiar with Rake [2], and later became a lead developer of Rant. So I assume he knows what he’s talking about. That said, the above provides a solid conceptual ground for the overwhelming preference of Rake over Rant in both Rails and the static site generation systems I’m currently reviewing, all of which are focused on very simple and/or Ruby-specific tasks. As for more practical grounds, this ML post [3] reveals that as recent as six months ago, Rant was experiencing serious existential threats. The sole developer announced he ran out of time and was not planning any further development. As Rant was at that point (and still is) in beta state, stagnation meant death. And indeed the major discussion channel of the Rant community was fizzling out. Under such conditions, it is no wonder that Rant would be perceived as too risky a choice for anyone but those who actually needed the non-Ruby-related features it offered over the stable, mature and vital Rake. At least three of these later sort joined the Rant development team soon after the quoted discussion took place. Since then, Rant has been making pretty steady progress. I’m not sure it would become a tempting alternative for those who can do with Rake, but it certainly looks poised to becoming more appealing for those who need the extra features and/or are looking for a build tool for non-Ruby-related systems. -Chris [1] [http://rubyforge.org/pipermail/make-cafe/2006-August/000089.html](http://rubyforge.org/pipermail/make-cafe/2006-August/000089.html) Most of the information relevant to our discussion is summarised in the the second-to-last paragraph: “So I have arrived at Rant. Based on Ruby so easy to work with. Almost but not quite a superset of Rake. Interested in building things other than Ruby software systems. Seems like a better choice than Rake. But is it? This is a question I have to ask myself and have a realistic answer; I need to feel comfortable about investing the effort to move from Rake to Rant. Apart from the fact that Rake has an article by Martin F. and is deeply internalized with the Ruby community, it is stable. It doesn’t seem to have any community but it does do the job and lots of people are downloading it. Rant appears to be technically superior but it has no community and no publicity machine. The analogy here is between VHS and Betamax – VHS was inferior but won out because of the publicity and expectation management. Currently Rake is winning over Rant because it appears as a download on the Ruby front page.” [2] [http://rubyforge.org/pipermail/make-cafe/2006-August/000083.html](http://rubyforge.org/pipermail/make-cafe/2006-August/000083.html) [3] [http://rubyforge.org/pipermail/make-cafe/2006-August/000086.html](http://rubyforge.org/pipermail/make-cafe/2006-August/000086.html) ---
**Author:** ![mahadewa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/9e8a1a/32.png) [@mahadewa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mahadewa)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2006, 2:03pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/whats-the-current-standing-of-rant-vs-rake/77856/3 "2006-12-04T14:03:11Z")
Chris P. wrote: > Further Investigation clears up some of the mystery. > > The following ML post [1] claims that Rant > covers some major use-cases which Rake doesn’t. Key quote: “Rake > appears to have no concern with anything outside the Ruby community”. > In other words, Rake is dedicated to building Ruby software system, > and not interested in building anything else, while Rant is. > > The author of that post was familiar with Rake [2], and later became a > lead developer of Rant. So I assume he knows what he’s talking about. That’s interesting, considering the Rake tutorial ([http://docs.rubyrake.org/read/book/1](http://docs.rubyrake.org/read/book/1)) actually covers building C code. Does the OP mention _which_ use cases Rake doesn’t cover? I’d be curious to know. > That said, the above provides a solid conceptual ground for the > overwhelming preference of Rake over Rant in both Rails and the static > site generation systems I’m currently reviewing, all of which are > focused on very simple and/or Ruby-specific tasks. I think it stands to reason that most people would use Rake for Ruby (or C). Just as most people use Ant for Java even though, in theory, you could use it for something else. Such is the nature of things. > As for more practical grounds, this ML post [3] reveals that as recent > as six months ago, Rant was experiencing serious existential threats. > The sole developer announced he ran out of time and was not planning > any further development. As Rant was at that point (and still is) in > beta state, stagnation meant death. And indeed the major discussion > channel of the Rant community was fizzling out. That would be a shame. I like the idea that there’s an alternative out there if we need it. > Under such conditions, it is no wonder that Rant would be perceived as > too risky a choice for anyone but those who actually needed the > non-Ruby-related features it offered over the stable, mature and vital > Rake. I’m not really sure what risk there is in practical terms, given that gems are the primary way most people get their code these days. Gem#add\_dependency(‘rant’). 🙂 I looked over the Rant project a bit, btw. Superficially it looked very similar to Rake, and I didn’t see a compelling reason to switch from Rake. That doesn’t mean one doesn’t exist, however. Rake is certainly not perfect IMHO, but it’s “good enough”. > At least three of these later sort joined the Rant development > team soon after the quoted discussion took place. Since then, Rant has > been making pretty steady progress. I’m not sure it would become a > tempting alternative for those who can do with Rake, but it certainly > looks poised to becoming more appealing for those who need the extra > features and/or are looking for a build tool for non-Ruby-related > systems. > > -Chris If there’s a compelling reason to switch, then people will switch. If not, they won’t. Regards, Dan ---
**Author:** ![mahadewa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/9e8a1a/32.png) [@mahadewa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mahadewa)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2006, 5:45pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/whats-the-current-standing-of-rant-vs-rake/77856/4 "2006-12-04T17:45:46Z")
Chris P. wrote: > I use rant all time time for building C apps and such and have ran into only 1 issue (its on the rant bugtracker), other than that its rock solid. I dont use rake so cant comment over it. Rant does all I need it to do. I dont consider it not production quality despite its version numbering. -stu ---
**Author:** ![mahadewa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/9e8a1a/32.png) [@mahadewa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mahadewa)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2006, 3:13pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/whats-the-current-standing-of-rant-vs-rake/77856/5 "2006-12-04T15:13:20Z")
On 12/4/06, Daniel B. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Chris P. wrote: > > > … > > Does the OP mention _which_ use cases Rake doesn’t cover? I’d be > > curious to know. In another thread, the author (Dr. Russel Winder) mentions the building of LaTeX books: “SCons supports this with builders that come as standard with the distribution. Rake appears to have no ready-made builders of any sort so I ended up writing my own functions to do the job. Rant appears also not to have any ready-made support for LaTeX but appears to have a more sophisticated view of things than Rake.” [http://rubyforge.org/pipermail/make-cafe/2006-August/000083.html](http://rubyforge.org/pipermail/make-cafe/2006-August/000083.html) -Chris