Java Power Tools

Chapter 2. Setting Up a Project Using Maven 2

Maven and the Development Build Process

In this chapter, we look at the second major player in the Java build tools arena: Maven.^[*] Maven is an increasingly popular open source build management tool for enterprise Java projects, designed to take much of the hard work out of the build process. Maven uses a declarative approach, in which the project structure and contents are described, rather then the task-based approach used in Ant or in traditional Make files or shell scripts. Maven also strongly promotes the use of standard directory structures and a well-defined build lifecycle. This helps enforce company-wide development standards and reduces the time needed to write and maintain build scripts.

Maven’s authors describe Maven as a “project management framework,” and it is indeed much more than just a simple build scripting tool. Maven’s declarative, standards-based approach to project build management simplifies many aspects of the project lifecycle. As well as catering for compiling, building, testing, and deploying your application with a minimum of effort, Maven offers a number of other key advantages:

• Project dependencies are declared and managed in a clean, transparent way, which reduces the risk of dependency-related errors and makes for better documentation.

• Maven lets you easily generate useful, high-quality, technical documentation and reports about the current state of the project and project team members. Note that we aren’t ...