Dear Fellow Tomcat Developers, As you may have already noticed, I recently joined the ASF and the Tomcat Developer's List. I have been a Maven 2 user since 2005, and I previously used Ant for all of my projects. I suffered through many hardships migrating from Ant to Maven, but in my humble opinion, it was well worth it. I believe that the Tomcat build can certainly benefit from some of the key features of Maven 2 mentioned below.
It is not my intention to start a flame war between Ant and Maven users, but merely to propose Maven 2 to this group, and respectfully use this thread to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of switching Tomcat's build process within the 6.0.x or possibly 7.0 release schedule. Please use this thread to voice your opinion. Reply to this message with any comments, and/or simple votes for or against the migration to Maven 2. If by some odd chance you have never seen or heard about Maven 2, please visit and explore : http://maven.apache.org/ Key features that may be useful to us are : - The Standard Directory Layout - Specifically, multi-module builds. This might make managing individual components easier for catalina, coyote, naming, jsp/servlet api/implementation, connector, etc. - Model-Based builds - Automatic packaging for the individual modules. - Dependency Management - Whether it is Apache or another third-party, dependencies can all easily be plugged in. - Distribution Management - Packaging and Deployment - Although Tomcat has a structured distribution model with Ant, Maven could make this easier with its assembly plugin. This also allows outside entities to easily embed specific Tomcat components or customize the server to suit their needs, (i.e. containers like Geronimo and JBoss, IDE plugins for Eclipse or Tomcat.) - Project Site and Report Generation. - The Tomcat documentation site may benefit greatly, but the Maven reporting plugins seem to be the bigger win here. As a new ASF / Tomcat contributor, I am hesitant to step on toes. But, I vote that we eat the dog food. This migration would certainly be something that I could dedicate myself to, and I believe I could make the transition seamless for all of us. I look forward to hearing from you. Whether you vote Yes or No, I am still happy to be working with you. :) Thank You, Paul Shemansky Maven 2 Evangelist / Open-Source Advocate / Java Code-Monkey P.S. - Maven has also been covered by the last few issues of JDJ, which has certainly given it a lot more public exposure lately : http://java.sys-con.com/read/393300.htm http://java.sys-con.com/read/400116.htm http://java.sys-con.com/read/419727.htm --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
