what can Phing do that Ant can't?

Question

I'm doing PHP development and I'm thinking of using one of these. I have both PHP and Java installed on my machine. In theory I could use any of the two.

What are the compelling arguments to pick Phing over Ant?

Answer 1

The greatest argument I have in favor of Phing is that it's fully developed in PHP ; which means, at least :

• You can debug it / submit patches if you want
• You can develop tasks in PHP
  • including tasks which are specific to your project
  • that can use stuff from your project (I've written a couple of tasks that use functions of Drupal, in a drupal-based project)
  • And, if you are working on a PHP project, your team probably knows PHP well -- while they might not know Java
• No need to install Java on your servers

Answer 2

The main argument (for me) for using Phing when doing PHP development is

• staying inside the PHP Ecosystem.
• When using Phing on shared hosts, you can be sure it works when PHP works.
• And you can easily extend Phing with your own task in PHP.
• And since it's a PHP tool you will sometimes find it in other applications as well.