Comments on CLOSED-LOOP: Maven gets partially absorbed by modern JVM langua...

dependency management is a first point where maven...

2009-12-26T21:45:31.541+01:00

dependency management is a first point where maven brought big time saving. Another one is a standardized build process and built-in good practices (convention over configuration). Of course maven has big pains too but in the end, I still can't see any viable alternative. jigsaw, buildr, gradle, etc. we'll see...

I've worked with Maven on several teams and am cur...

2009-12-25T17:33:50.728+01:00

I've worked with Maven on several teams and am currently the build manager for a team. I've said this before, but it's still true: the people who have t he most problems or complaints typically don't understand how to use it correctly. In my experience, when someone shows them how to do something correctly the complaints disappear. That said, Maven does have a bit of a learning curve for new devs or those familiar only with the verbosity of Ant.

Gradle. www.gradle.org - Maven levels of functiona...

2009-12-25T00:01:17.813+01:00

Gradle. www.gradle.org - Maven levels of functionality, a nice Groovy based DSL for easy of use.

There's still lots of work to be done, but it's got 90% of Maven functionality for 95% of users.

I have seen quite some really lousy builds. Especi...

2009-12-24T15:50:24.860+01:00

I have seen quite some really lousy builds. Especially Ant/Ivy powered ones. And I have seen tools that even to not grasp the need for a repeatable and dependable build system.

Actually Maven does have a steep learning curve, although after I've left that behind me I never found a real point to complain about.
There have been issues, although there was fast and good support.
Plus lovely IDE integration and finally a decent way to enable cooperation between teams and use real no-brainer-abstraction.

Go bring your complaints to Maven and make it better.
Just doing the Linux way of rolling 5000 custom tools that do the same stuff with minimal differences, all incompatible, all mediocre some of them not even tackling the root cause will not advance the industry.

Just my nasty 2cents.

I have faith in Gradle.

2009-12-24T14:35:27.353+01:00

I have faith in Gradle.

Maven was and is horrible. The only thing it provi...

2009-12-24T12:21:55.197+01:00

Maven was and is horrible. The only thing it provides for the java world is a more or less usefull package format. I use Ant+Ivy+Nexus for build and dependency management. Especially Nexus is very valuable....

I've used Maven in the past and have always become...

2009-12-24T04:29:08.978+01:00

I've used Maven in the past and have always become frustrated at some point. When it works, it is great. When it breaks, it can be very painful. It got to the point that I decided to spin my own Ant+Ivy+Groovy build system that, oddly enough, uses the Maven directory structure and life-cycle. I like it because I have total control over every aspect of the build. We'll see if Gradle will mature to the point where I'll want to switch to it.