On 20/12/2011 03:21, David Jencks wrote: > Thanks for your brevity, Mark.... On Dec 19, 2011, at 11:24 AM, Mark > Thomas wrote:
I'll try and keep this response short too, but these are non-trivial issues... >> On 19/12/2011 18:47, David Jencks wrote: >>> I mentioned dec 17 that geronimo >>> has been maintaining a script for 2+ years that pulls tomcat >>> source out of tomcat svn and puts it in an appropriately >>> structured maven mutli-project build more time on this. >> >> I'm curious. What are the benefits of doing this over using the >> JARs that Tomcat already publishes to Maven central? Is there >> something wrong / missing with those JARs? If so, it can probably >> be fixed. > > Geronimo originally needed a way we could track to apply patches. I > don't know that we have needed any patches recently, but we now need > osgi bundles. If Geronimo prefers a 100% Maven build and needs to patch Tomcat then I can see why you created the Mavenised layout. However, I don't see that as a good reason for changing Tomcat's build layout. There are other folks that consume Tomcat that prefer the 100% Ant approach. If there was an overwhelming majority for Maven then the switch could make sense just for that reason but I don't see an overwhelming majority one way or the other at the moment. Therefore, on this point, the status quo is the right answer in my view. OSGI bundles are a new requirement. And one that I don't recall seeing mentioned on the dev or users list. Is this just a Geronimo requirement or is there likely to be a wider demand for these? If it is just Geronimo then it might be easier to just leave this in Geronimo. If there is a wider demand, then the Tomcat project should probably take ownership of this. I have lots of questions on this which probably don't belong on this thread. If you think it would be better for the Tomcat project to produce these then please create an enhancement request and the details can be worked out there. If there is an easy way to create these in Maven and creating them with the Ant script is difficult / painful / error prone, then that would be an argument in favour of Maven. How strong that argument is would depend on how easy it was to do this with Maven and how big the problems were with doing this with Ant. >>> As I have said before in previous iterations of this topic, IMO >>> many of the advantages of maven are not for direct development of >>> the project itself (although they certainly exist) but in >>> encouraging interactions with other projects and communities. >>> You won't be able to detect these without actually using maven. >> >> How does building with Maven encourage interaction with other >> communities over and above the interaction we see via publishing >> the JARS to Maven central that we already publish? > > I generally wont work on projects that aren't maven based because the > project layout and build system usually takes too long for me to > understand to be worth it for the possible contribution I might make. I feel exactly the opposite and tend to avoid projects that use Maven for exactly the same reasons. > Now that Geronimo has a mavenized tomcat, I can consider working on > tomcat problems in the mavenized copy and if I think it's worth the > trouble try to generate a patch against the original tomcat source. > I think the standardization maven brings makes projects much more > friendly to outsiders looking to contribute. And I think Maven adds complexity and magic that makes it harder for folks to figure out what is going on. As I have said elsewhere, a lot of this comes down to how familiar you are with the tool. I'm not against learning how to use Maven, if the return is worth the investment. I remain to be convinced that that is the case. Mark --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@tomcat.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@tomcat.apache.org
