Well, comparing maven to ant is hard, as they don't have the same goals.
IMHO, the key point to understand is that Ant is free scripting, whereas
maven is a full-blown build framework.
Ant provides low-level tooling for dealing with aspects of, well, many
things (the number of available ant tasks is just amazing). But you do the
cooking from scratch. Think "shell script in XML".
Maven defines a "standard" for what's needed for a build via, mainly :
* the resources involved
* the lifecycle (maven phases)
* the dependencies (like Oscar, for me it's the main advantage)
* the plugin system
With maven, you integrate in the framework to benefit of what it brings to
you.
Now, main complains you'll hear about maven are that it imposes things.
Yes, it does. For your own good : use the standard for what it's been
designed will help you save time and effort. That's what frameworks do. You
can use request.getParameter() in Stripes, but what's the point ? You have
binding and validation...
The first thing you do with ant is redefine your own build lifecycle...
well, IMO it's a sufficient proof that it's too low level for me.
Of course, like everything, Maven has its small itches here and there. I
also complain sometimes. But overall, I've complained a looooot more about
ant !
So in the end, if you ask me, well, there's no competition. Use the right
tool for the right job again. And learn it, and use it well, otherwise you
might just use anything.
I use maven in almost every java project I work on. And on projects of
various sizes, from the personal thing to the big fat commercial product.
And to be honest, it's always proven to bring way more benefits than
problems.
Cheers
Remi
2010/10/4 Oscar Westra van Holthe - Kind <os...@westravanholthe.nl>
> On 03-10-2010 at 14:42, amagha wrote:
> >
> > I've never used Maven and would love a link to a good primer on why and
> how
> > to use it. Anyone have any suggestions? In the mean time, I'll check
> out
> > the Apache Maven page.
>
> Something I've not seen on any website (not even on the Apache Maven page),
> is the most compelling reason a developer wants to use maven. After all,
> why
> bother, if you have a working ant build? If it ain't broke, don't fix it,
> right?
>
> Despite that, I'm very happy to have switched to Maven. Not because a
> pom.xml
> file is easier to read or write than an ant script (it's a different angle,
> not easier or more difficult IMHO). For me, the main reason to use Maven is
> its dependency mechanism.
>
> Yes, the plugins are nice, but ant tasks get the job done too. Having an
> online repository is a help, but a share with most used libraries works
> too.
> Maven's dependency mechanism is something else though.
>
> The main advantages:
> - Transitive dependencies (i.e. the dependencies of dependencies) are
> included automatically.
> - You can have different dependencies for compilation, testing and running
> the application. This to accommodate differences like jars available in
> the
> application server, jars needed for unit tests and jars needed to run the
> application.
> - Maven handles all dependencies, in that it collects them and places them
> in
> the correct locations, adds them to the classpath during compilation and
> testing, etc.
> - That Maven can handle any build as dependency (i.e. also .war, .ear,
> .rar,
> .sar files) is just icing on the cake.
>
>
> Oscar
>
> --
> ,-_
> /() ) Oscar Westra van Holthe - Kind
> http://www.xs4all.nl/~kindop/<http://www.xs4all.nl/%7Ekindop/>
> (__ (
> =/ () Even if you win the rat race, you are still a rat...
>
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>
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