Ant + IVY delivers as much dependency management functionality as maven does.
Maven is good for building jar solutions. We don't build jar solutions. We exploit jars! Best regards, Pierre Smits *ORRTIZ.COM <http://www.orrtiz.com>* Services & Solutions for Cloud- Based Manufacturing, Professional Services and Retail & Trade http://www.orrtiz.com On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 7:51 AM, Hans Bakker <mailingl...@antwebsystems.com> wrote: > We should seriously consider the comments from Adam and move to maven. > > Regards, > Hans > antwebsystems.com > > > On 18/04/15 00:41, Adam Heath wrote: > >> >> On 04/17/2015 10:20 AM, Jacques Le Roux wrote: >> >>> Thanks for your detailed heads-up Martin, notably your last point! >>> >>> I mostly agree, and indeed I also think Maven might not be so bad when >>> you start anew (or are forced to use it ;) ) but for OFBiz, really NO! >>> >>> Jacques >>> >>> Le 17/04/2015 16:27, Martin Becker a écrit : >>> >>>> +1 for lack of benefit (and for fear ;-)) >>>> >>> >> The commit I did last night took me 45 minutes. Full stop. I started at >> 12:03am. And I did it while drinking a second beer. Maven was that >> simple. I had resisted for years. Years! But when I actually sat down to >> do it, I realized that I did *not* have to change what I was doing. Maven >> could be configured to work with the existing design. >> >> The benefits are: >> >> * not having to write our own build system; ant is not a build system. >> >> * full external dependency management. This can be done very >> incrementally. I just got framework/base to compile, by reusing the >> previously downloaded jars in framework/base/lib. Then, when all >> dependencies are *properly* listed, we can switch to the download >> mechanism, and suddenly, the checkout becomes smaller. >> >> * full internal dependency support. As part of framework/base now having >> a working pom.xml, it has a dep on framework/start. This can allow for >> end-users wanting to just install applications/party, and having just what >> is required get downloaded. >> >> * Each ofbiz component could be moved to separate repos, and development >> can progress on its own. All that specialpurpose/* stuff no longer needs >> to be carried along with the rest of the codebase. >> >> * continuous integration becomes so much simpler; the standard "mvn >> package" call does command-line unit tests, *by default*. >> >> * these poms do not break anything. Nothing calls them. Everyone can >> continue to use ant, eclipse, or DIP switches, to compile and run ofbiz. >> So, having them in trunk won't cause issue for anyone else. This is the >> way linux-kernel functions. Completely new, isolated features, that affect >> no one else, are added to master/linux-next, so that they can get pushed >> out to more users, for more testing. If something is done in a separate >> branch, they have discovered it doesn't recieve enough widespread testing. >> >> >>>> >>>> My first thoughts: >>>> >>>> => If a change is desired, than Gradle would surely be a good choice as >>>> it is the next generation build tool witch tries to combine the advantages >>>> from tools like ant, maven and others… >>>> >>> >> Sure, why not? >> >> >> Besides, I'm the one who created ${ofbiz.home.dir}/macros.xml and >> common.xml, but really, lets not go there. >> >> >>>> => I think the stability of Gradle is not a question as it is used by >>>> projects like Spring, Hibernate, Grails, Groovy and others… >>>> >>>> => With the ability to use ant tasks and whole ant build scripts within >>>> Gradle, a smooth migration could be an option >>>> >>>> >> Maven can call ant. I'm even doing so in the 2 poms that I added. >> >> => Maven rely on it’s convention over configuration pattern, so it is >>>> never a good idea to NOT follow it’s conventions by configuring it for a >>>> different project structure for example. So there may be the need for >>>> massive changes to the OFBiz project structure and so on. >>>> >>>> >> I just got framework/base to compile with maven. This includes *NO* >> changes to ofbiz layout. framework/base/lib still exists. Nothing is being >> downloaded(except maven plugins, of course). >> >> => Also the ability to only produce one artifact per project in maven >>>> would perhaps end up in configuring sub projects for each application and >>>> module in OFBiz with a frustrating handling of multi module configurations >>>> with version-/release-tags, dependency handling and so on... >>>> >>>> >> This is wrong. You can produce multiple artifacts. I've seen it done in >> other projects. >> >> => I used maven in multi module project setups before and it has it’s >>>> nice features, although it is sometimes hard to understand details and >>>> effects of the build lifecycle or single plugins. But the main fact is, >>>> that this were green-field projects, so things in terms of convention over >>>> configuration are much easier to adopt than in legacy projects like an >>>> OFBiz… >>>> >>>> >> >> >> => The change of the build tool for OFBiz would be a fundamental change, >>>> particularly for upgrading existing installations. So a change to the >>>> project structure could be a deathblow to OFBiz vendor imports in customer >>>> projects. I think it could be a good starting point to look at Gradle and >>>> see if there is a wise way to use the strength and new features of a modern >>>> build tool without the need to turn things inside out in OFBiz. >>>> >>>> >> I'm not just some noob in ofbiz. I've been around for quite a bit. I've >> been around when ofbiz was still using CVS. I was the first to start using >> git locally for ofbiz development, and for our own ofbiz >> extensions/fixes/client work. I've also been invovled with Debian in years >> past, being involved in several migrations. I also added generics(and >> enhanced for loops, etc), to *all* of framework, to spearhead that >> project. But seriously, moving on. >> >> But, what structure changes have I propsed? None. I've got it working >> with the exsting layout. Nothing has turned inside out. >> >> >>>> Martin Becker >>>> ecomify GmbH >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Am 17.04.2015 um 13:56 schrieb Jacques Le Roux < >>>>> jacques.le.r...@les7arts.com>: >>>>> >>>>> Le 17/04/2015 12:49, Jacopo Cappellato a écrit : >>>>> >>>>>> On Apr 17, 2015, at 4:39 AM, Taher Alkhateeb < >>>>>> slidingfilame...@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> Hi All, >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Thank you for your work but I thought we are more inclined to move >>>>>>> to gradle based build systems given its many advantages as a full >>>>>>> programming language build system based on groovy. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Taher Alkhateeb >>>>>>> >>>>>> I agree: we could explore the switch to Gradle and also review the >>>>>> way our source files (Java, Groovy and Minilang/xml) are organized (we >>>>>> could actually follow the layout that is considered the default for Maven >>>>>> and Gradle and possibly other tools). >>>>>> >>>>>> Jacopo >>>>>> >>>>>> I don't know if Gradle is stable now, but I'd surely be for instead >>>>> of Maven. If ever we really desire to move from Ant, I don't clearly see >>>>> the necessity at this stage... >>>>> >>>>> Jacques >>>>> >>>>> >>>> >>>> >> >
