I'll try to keep it short because I really don't want to spend time re-beating this dead horse.
The last time I looked a couple years ago the jars constructed out of the single source tree could not be compiled separately in any order. I was told this wasn't a problem, at which point I realized discussion was useless. Maven prevents problems like this through the project structure. If this situation is not a problem to the tomcat community, then the other possible benefits of using maven are not likely to be interesting either. thanks david jencks On Dec 17, 2011, at 12:48 PM, Mark Thomas wrote: > On 17/12/2011 20:24, Antonio Petrelli wrote: >> Ok, let's do it again :-D >> 1. Standardization. Maven strongly encourages to use a standardized >> structure. The source should go into src/main/java, the resources in >> src/main/resources etc. You can change it, but this is discouraged. With >> Ant you always do things differently for different projects. > > What benefit is this to the Tomcat community? I see a change, but no > benefit. > >> 2. Modularization. Separation between modules is strong, i.e. one jar-one >> source directory. In the case of Tomcat, there is a big big trouble: one >> single big source directory. Separating them will be one of the most >> important step to do. > > Why is that an issue? Switching to a single source tree was one of the > best changes we ever made. It has been much easier to manage than the > multiple source trees we had in the past. The dependencies are known and > we have checks in place (via Checkstyle) to ensure that unwanted > dependencies are not added. Again, what is the benefit here to the > Tomcat community? There has been some interest but very little activity > towards greater modularity. If there was more interest in increasing > modularity then there might be a case for this but given Tomcat's remit > of implementing the Servlet and JSP specs there is very little that > could be made modular / optional. Jasper and EL are already optional > (well, they can be removed) and pretty much everything else is required > by the Servlet spec. > >> 3. Metadata-driven process. The build process is driven by metadata (where >> the source is? where should I deploy it?) and not by commands (compile the >> source that is in that point, deploy it in that repository) > > Again, how does this benefit the Tomcat community? > >> 4. POMs are (almost) universal. Projects of the same kind have almost the >> same content.. > > How does this benefit the Tomcat community? > >> 5. Plug-ins do generically what pieces of Ant's script do specifically. For >> example take the Maven assembly plugin: via a descriptor you obtain a zip >> file to distribute. > > That sounds like just a different way of doing things. What is the benefit? > >> 6. When all the metadata is in place, the release process is a matter of >> launching: >> mvn release:prepare >> and >> mvn release:perform > > Right now the release process is: > ant release > followed by scp / ftp / 'take your pick' the files to the right place > and that could be added to the script if we really wanted to (but no-one > has felt the need to scratch that itch). > > In summary, I see a lot of differences but no benefits. Changing to > Maven would mean big changes along with some disruption. For the > community to make those changes and accept that disruption there needs > to be something in return. So far, I haven't seen anything that I would > class as a benefit to the community (e.g. faster build process, simpler > releases, fewer bugs, etc.). > > Mark > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@tomcat.apache.org > For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@tomcat.apache.org > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@tomcat.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@tomcat.apache.org
