Interpreter
--------------
Can I suggest that a good first step towards an enhanced Maven POM
structure would be to introduce an <interpreter> element that declares the
interpreter to use to consume the remainder of the POM file.
Lack of such an element reverts to 4.0 interpreter.
Doing this would allow us to easily trial, share and discuss structural
changes that we might like to see.
Attributes
------------
One of the most common complaints that I hear about Maven is that it is too
verbose. The typical example given is the list of dependencies for a mid
sized project, which will often number around 15-20. This translates into
75-100 lines of dependency declaration minimum, or 135-180 if a
dependencyManagement block is also used. That's a lot of scrolling for
something that could/should easily fit on your screen.
For 5.0 I would like to see attributes used to declare at least the most
common dependency elements.
Eg
<dependencies>
<dependency groupId="com.foo.bar" artifactId="depA" version="1.0" />
<dependency groupId="com.foo.bar" artifactId="depB" version="1.1"
type="aar" />
</dependencies>
Instead of
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>com.foo.bar</groupId>
<artifactId>depA</artifactId>
<version>1.0</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>com.foo.bar</groupId>
<artifactId>depB</artifactId>
<version>1.1</version>
<type>aar</type>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
William
