Re: Technical Decisions Regarding NMaven?

[James Carpenter]

I think it is fair to argue that the current maven requirement to have versions in the repository artifact filenames is fundamentally deficient. Just as .NET assemblies must maintain the same filename regardless of version, there are bound to be other exotic artifacts which have the same requirement.

I would therefore recommend the DefaultArtifactResolver within maven simply be enhanced to make versions in the artifact names optional. I expect the maven core maintainers would willingly conceed this change as long as a good explanation is provided. To make this actually happen an NMaven developer should simply work out and implement the actual changes within the maven source and submit a patch with an explanation. I have successfully contributed maven patches in the past and find that any reasonable change is generally accepted. (See http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/MSANDBOX-23 for an example.)

http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/MSANDBOX-26




Sincerely,
James Carpenter
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

On Nov 14, 2007, at 5:00 PM, Shane Isbell wrote:

Some mechanism to enforce the current conventions for java artifacts should probably be put in place. As appropriate the definition of a type could include a filename pattern. The default pattern being the standard one which includes versions in the filename, with the .NET artifact types explicitly specifying filename patterns without versions. I would suggest that a given artifact type always follow a specific filename pattern. So java artifacts should always have version numbers in their filenames, and .NET artifacts should never have version numbers in their filenames. In typical maven spirt, convention should be favored over configuration. The more flexible the artifact repository structure becomes, the greater the complexity and maintenance cost. Some additional discussion of this issue can be found on a JIRA issue I created over a year ago, when still actively writing .NET code built with maven. The JIRA proposes post-processing maven artifacts. Although this will work, I expect teaching the DefaultArtifactResolver to handle alternative artifact filename patterns (as described above) is likely a better choice. The implementation effort required to make these changes within the DefaultArtifactResolver is probably at least a few days if not a week or two. As I don't have this time to spend myself, I'm just acting as a really bad back seat driver. As I have not actively worked with nmaven as of late I expect I am restating the obvious at times, or failing to account for certain functionality that is now in place. It is my hope, that by the time I next work with .NET all of the nmaven goodness will be worked into standard maven and all the little kinks worked out. Its already far far better than what I worked with a year and a half ago.

Currently, NMaven supports not having versions in the file name, but the implementation is creating a divergence from Maven. From the response here,

it does look as though we are going to need to continue supporting no

such a way as to bring the implementation more in line with Maven.


likely be more complicated to manage than RDF.

Shane

On Nov 14, 2007 2:32 PM, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

versions in the assembly file name. The issue now becomes how we do it in If we do away with capabilities/requirements, we could do away with RDF, but we are still left with a fairly big implementation divergence. Throwing out some half-baked thoughts here: the copying of assembly files within the same repo is a nightmare to deal with, so we would still need some uac concept (or shadow repo) that also contains the poms and assemblies w/o versions in file name. If we require pom + additional meta data file, then this will

I agree with James - let's?put the?versioning in the directory structure or a separate file - in the large corporate environment I work in, we've got a lot of third-party proprietary binaries that will need to be included in

the repository, and recompiling is not feasible.


-----Original Message-----
From: James Carpenter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: nmaven-dev@incubator.apache.org
Sent: Tue, 13 Nov 2007 4:33 pm
Subject: Re: Technical Decisions Regarding NMaven?



maven's SVN.?

maven JIRA you will actually see a lot of old obsolete JIRAs I posted
against them.?
?
While doing this work it became painfully obvious that .NET artifacts

use.?
?

should become optional.)?
?
Please forgive me if what I am discussing is overly obvious.?
?
On Nov 12, 2007, at 3:15 PM, Shane Isbell wrote:?
?

I'm not currently actively engaged in .NET development built via maven, but I did use the early pre-nmaven plugins which used to be found down in While working with those I was frequently tweaking the various plugins to implement tactical fixes, recognizing a proper solution would require the major architectural changes and momentum shown by nmaven. If you look on the should be stored in the maven repository without versions as part of their names (or at least moved to their original filename once downloaded by the resolver). The assembly dependencies listed in the meta-data files within a strongly named (digitally signed) 3rd party .NET assembly must have the same name they were built with. When placing strongly named 3rd party dlls into my maven repo (such as Tibco), I don't get to monkey with the meta- data within them as they are digitally signed. Furthermore I don't have the source code with which to build my own. Even if I did have source, its unreasonable to require me to recompile every 3rd party library I want to In short, please please don't do anything which mandates a name change when placing an arbitrary 3rd party artifact into the repository. If you have not already done so, I recommend you simply teach the standard maven artifact resolver to be capable of using the repository directory structure and pom contents alone to determine version information. If you absolutely must, introduce an extra meta-data file (say version.xml) to sit alongside the pom, but please don't impose mandatory inflexible naming convention on the artifacts. (Java artifacts should continue to place the version in the filename as its really nice to have when it doesn't cause problems, but this

We do need to come to some technical decisions regarding the > direction

of?

NMaven. I've taken a hard look at what are the most difficult parts > to

bring?

in line with Maven core and hope to get some feedback and a > decision

on how?

we want to approach it.?
?
1) Including the versions in the file name??

Pros: Simplifies the resolving and brings it in line with Maven. No >

RDF, no?

uac directory.?

Cons: Forces assembly loading equivalent to strong naming. This > means

that?

you need to recompile the whole assembly chain when making a change > in

a?

dependency.?
?

matching??
Pros: Faster start up time, due to no reading of settings file and >

2) Remove support for the nmaven-settings and requirement/ capability?

matching.?

Easier integration with Maven core.?

Cons: No longer can change the framework versions/vendors of builds >

through?

an external settings file, but rather need to manually configure > the

paths?

to framework versions and vendors. More manually coding required > when

adding?

support for new framework versions.?
?
The nmaven-settings is particularly good for testing applications >

against?

multiple build environments and makes it much easier to add support >

for new?

framework versions, but not so useful for environments that target > a

single?

environment, which appears to be the general use case for NMaven.?
?

repository??
?

3) Continued support for downloading and running executables from the? These three decisions have to do with the reduction of > functionality

to make?

integration with Maven core easier. In the first case (1), I'm all for? including versions in the file-name as I now think that strong > naming

should?

be required of all open-source projects, but I am not certain if > there

are?

any individual cases (particularly on corporate projects) where > this

may?

prove disadvantageous.?
?

The second case (2) is a little trickier because we would lose some >

cool?

functionality, but from my observations, most people are targeting one? environment anyway, so they may not mind a little extra > configuration.

My?

vision for the requirements/capabilities concept requires > eventually

having?

requirement concepts within the pom.xml file. I moved toward the > RDF

concept?

which solved this issue of needing to modify the pom but then I was?

confronted with all the repository work (Archiva, etc) that would > be

needed?

to eventually support RDF, as well as the concerns with moving away >

from the?

core Maven implementation. So if (1) goes away, (2) promises only > half

a?

solution. In that case, we should consider deprecating it.?
?

The third case (3) deals with being able to deploy an executable, > its

conf?

file and dependencies into a repo and then be able to resolve and > run

that?

exe during a build. In some ways, this is really there to allow > NMaven

to?

run as a Maven plugin and have all the runners, loaders download?
automatically and be part of the life-cycle. I think eventually >

everything?

will be deployed within Maven core (or through an MSI or other >

installer),?

so there will not be a direct need from NMaven's perspective to >

support?

this. However, others may find it useful. My preference would be to?

discontinue this unless someone finds this useful and intends to > use

it.?

?
Shane?

?



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