Rick wrote:
Is it common for the development environment to rely on company snapshot versions and only in test or later, to define specific version numbers? I seem weary though to have for example project B rely on the snapshot version of project A. Maybe project A is working on a release that won't break project B, but it's still a release that project B wouldn't necessarily want (especially if they haven't been communicating with each other. For example maybe project A is changing the way a calculation is done, but project B still wants the calc to stay the old way for now. If they are relying on snapshots, they might not be aware that the change was even made.)
You are describing a recipe for disaster - use proper release management, and you will be fine.
In other words, use the maven-release-plugin to publish formal releases of code, and make sure that project A never depends on a snapshot of project B if you can possibly avoid it. Use proper version numbers.
"snapshot" is another way of saying "all bets are off", and I cannot stress this enough: if project B depends on snapshots from project A, project B is saying "we accept that our code will break with no warning and for no clear reason because of project A, and it will be our own fault".
Get your projects to release often, and you will minimise the need for people to depend on snapshots.
Regards, Graham --
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