Re: [Wonder-disc] [ANN] WOCommunity Maven Repository
Re: [Wonder-disc] [ANN] WOCommunity Maven Repository
- Subject: Re: [Wonder-disc] [ANN] WOCommunity Maven Repository
- From: Lachlan Deck <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2009 08:46:27 +1100
On 19/03/2009, at 7:47 AM, Chuck Hill wrote:
On Mar 18, 2009, at 1:32 PM, Hugi Thordarson wrote:
Heh, indeed - I've smoked a few behind the school myself ;-).
But on the original topic, I really, really wanted to stay away
from Maven until now - but is that where we're headed? Seriously,
is Maven the future for WO?
I'd say it is "a" future for WO, but not necessarily "the" future.
Very true.
I've been avoiding Maven (as an additional, unneccessary
complification)
I've looked into it a few times and never felt that the benefit
outweighed the cost. It just seems like another layer of complexity
and technology to solve a problem that I don't think that I have.
That's great.
Look at the number of commits to the pom files in Wonder vs the
number to the Ant build system.
The pom file will get changed just as often as either
- the versions of its dependencies are updated
- other features are enabled
- the release of wonder snapshots is made.
This latter point is where you may indeed see some extra noise in the
svn repo as you do for ant. But so what. This process is automated and
as such is an invalid point of comparison.
It would be just as unfair a comparison for me to suggest looking in
the mailing list archives for the regularity of confusion surrounding
the ant build system for WO and why one needs to both export
dependencies from a framework as well as add them as dependencies to
the app and on it goes. Well, in fact, this is something maven does
better but the point is that by focusing in on one thing and doing so
without explanation of its purpose is simply producing unnecessary FUD.
but I like to stay on top of things, and If this is the direction
WO and/or WOnder is headed, I'm going Maven tomorrow... No use
fighting the flow....
Yes?
YMMV.
It's true that a river starts with a drop. I'm not sure we could
fairly suggest that there's, as yet, much of a steady trickle in the
WO community right now so you'll need to weigh that up of course about
where the most support is found etc[1]. I'd suggest that there's
pluses and minuses in both directions. You'll need to weigh it up
after doing your own research[2]. Are you happy with your current
build system? Are there problems? Are there benefits you can see from
switching? etc
Of course, this ought to get simpler as we add more and more
documentation and tutorials and improve the WO maven plugins and
eclipse integration[3].
So it would be fair to say: expect an initial learning curve. There's
certainly lots of nice things about maven - esp its dependency
management and build env. There's lots of plugins for it, adding third
party dependencies is easy. But there'll be things that'll grate too
as there is with ant.
My advice: don't let fear stop you from trying it out, asking
questions, reading up. Just don't make your decision lightly. It's not
as though there's no path of return though.
with regards,
--
Lachlan Deck
[1] Naturally, the maven user list itself is very active and lots of
help is available there too.
[2] And, there's a few of us who've done the initial hard yards so to
speak for WO usage. I, for example, spent a few months reading and
trying it out prior to deciding if it was going to be worth it
(beginning of last year). So I don't suggest making a snap decision. I
switched ultimately for two reasons: a) the ant build system at the
time infuriated me. The whole dependency management (this is well
prior to the new hotness) and having to switch environments on the OS
to link to a different version of WO. The duplicate effort of
maintaining ant dependencies and eclipse dependencies etc and trying
to come up with an automated build system that worked. Ugh. So I
looked for alternatives. b) I liked what I saw and the additional
options it provides.
[3] e.g., making things simpler
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