Hi Chuck,
Chuck Hill wrote:
> Hi Pierce,
>
>
> On Jul 9, 2008, at 2:50 AM, Pierce T. Wetter III wrote:
>>>>
>>
>> I'm using this as a measure:
>>
>> wc -l `find . -name "build.xml" -print` Build/build/build-*.xml
>> Build/build/generic.xml `find . -name "build.properties" -print` `find
>> . -name "*.patternset" -print` `find . -name ".classpath" -print`
>
>> Because the problem as I've found with Ant is that the build
>> information is in all of those files, not just build.xml.
>
> Lets place the blame where the blame belongs and make a more honest
> comparison. This is most NOT an Ant issue. It is a WOProject / build
> philosophy issue. The duplication between .classpath and some of the
> files in woproject/ are a deficiency in the woproject Ant tasks in that
> they currently can't use what is in .classpath. Mike is working on
> fixing this.
Will Ant tasks rely on Eclipse .classpath file to build WO projects? Can
anyone explain a bit more about this subject?
>
> Now, what does maven do for this? Unless it is reading the .classpath
> file, it also has to somehow, somewhere duplicate the information that
> Eclipse uses. Duplication is duplication. And will Eclipse update the
> Maven information in the pom.xml when a new framework is added? When a
> new jar is added to the project? Or is that all manual pom fiddling?
Maven takes care of the project management. So, you only have to change
the POMs (as explained by Lachlan). This way, you can generate
configuration files for Eclipse, IDEA, Netbeans and any other IDE you
want (maybe you have to write a plug-in).
You can make the changes inside Eclipse with q4e or m2eclipse. These
plug-ins synchronize the Eclipse configuration after a change in the POM.
>
> The rest of the patternsets are also not an Ant issue, but a design
> philosophy in woproject (to not force a project layout).
Maven don't force a directory layout also.
> If you do use
> a project layout, as Wonder does, these can easily be rendered unnecessary.
>
> Finally, build.properties:
>
> principalClass=
> project.name=
> customInfoPListContent=
> eoAdaptorClassName=
> webXML=
> webXML_CustomContent=
> classes.dir=
>
> If Maven does not use these and does not have a parallel system, then it
> has less flexibility. How would Maven handle it if the package name for
> the Application were changed in Eclispe?
maven-wolifecycle-plugin use this file to generate the WOA package. In
fact, this plug-in also use the WOProject Ant Tasks for this goal. :)
If you don't want to use the build.properties (or the
maven-wolifecycle-plugin), you can add that information on your POM
using properties and filtering the required resources on each build.
Cheers,
Henrique
>
>
> Chuck
>
>
>> This makes it easier to use a single generic Ant build file, but to
>> some extent that's the whole point of maven in my mind. With Ant,
>> everything is so bloody explicit that you end up creating a sort of
>> virtual maven via Wonder's generic.xml.
>>
>> To quote from "generic.xml":
>>
>> 2) to build your own projects that have the same layout as a wonder
>> project
>>
>> So mvn/Wonder have the same approach. Standardize on a layout, so that
>> you can use the same build methodology everywhere. You use the same
>> recipe you get the same bread.
>>
>> But I have to say, the ant build files are very complicated to
>> understand compared to the pom.xml files. In the past, I've found that
>> I end up having to grok all 1300 lines of Build/build/build.xml and
>> Build/build/generic.xml in order to debug the build of one of my
>> projects.
>>
>>>
>>> Second, the individual build files build way more projects:
>>>
>>> macbook:Wonder ak$ find . -name build.xml|wc
>>> 67 67 2775
>>> macbook:Wonder ak$ find . -name pom.xml|wc
>>> 56 56 2121
>>
>> You're looking at what you have, but I've rewritten all of those and
>> added new ones. I have files to build nearly everything in Wonder on
>> my system:
>>
>> sierramadre:Wonder pierce$ find . -name pom.xml | wc
>> 68 68 2440
>>
>>>
>>> Thirdly from what I've seen, someone needs to change all these files
>>> whenever we bump a version. All of Ulrichs commits so far where these
>>> xml fixes. All *I* need to do is set one property.
>>
>> I'm using a property in my pom.xml versions as well. So changing all
>> those files isn't really necessary, I can change the version by
>> changing the master pom.xml, same as you can. Eventually, I'll move
>> all the jar references up to the master pom, which will save me a line
>> per reference, and standardize the versions used.
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Fourth, adding a project typically requires five lines in
>>> Build/build/build.xml to add it to the correct group and some props.
>>> I might consider moving these props from the build file to a
>>> build.properties and making Build/build/build.xml only specify the
>>> inter-related deps.
>>
>> Except you have to add the build dependencies somewhere as well,
>> which if you want to compare apples/oranges, you really have to count
>> right? You also have to count the information in build.properties. The
>> information in the pom.xml file for a new project without dependencies
>> is more then 5 lines, its like 10 lines, but 5 of those name the
>> project so you can reference it elsewhere and the other 5 reference
>> the super-pom.
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I'll grant you one point for the commons-logging versions, but I use
>>> neither ERJGroups or EROpenID. If I were and I'd be bothered, I'd
>>> figure out a way to keep them using only one.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> It's not just that jar. WO uses commons-logging as well. The real
>> point here is that managing jar dependencies sucks. I know you feel
>> criticized but you shouldn't take it personal because I'm talking
>> about Wonder as my real point is that Wonder, which is widely used,
>> and considered pretty stable, has some jar dependency issues. The
>> solution to the jar problem that Wonder uses is the ERJars framework
>> for common jars, and Libraries directories for unique jars, but that
>> doesn't really solve the problem unless someone with
>> Obsessive-Compulsive-Disorder dedicates their life to keeping ERJars
>> in sync. Even then, what if you want some frameworks and not others
>> from Wonder, or you need the same (but newer version) jar in one of
>> your applications.
>>
>> The maven solution is to document the dependencies, and setup a whole
>> bunch of infrastructure in order to be able to compute all that stuff
>> on the fly.
>>
>> Again, you use the same recipe you get the same bread; conceptually,
>> ERJars functions as a maven repository, just one manually maintained.
>>
>> Having had to fight with a whole bunch of jar dependency issues in
>> production recently, I'm leaning more towards the maven way; as
>> opposed to trusting that every engineer will dutifully scour all the
>> other Libraries directories in all the other projects to see what's
>> needed where. Or even that I'll remember to push the missing jar into
>> production.
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> So far we've seen that maven is neither more terse nor more powerful
>>> (at least in a way that would mean something to me).
>>
>>
>> I think maven makes a reasonable attempt to solve a really, really
>> annoying problem.
>>
>> As far as terseness goes, perhaps that's not the right measure, but
>> generic.xml gives me the freaking willies, while pom.xml seems
>> stunningly obvious. I mean I really, really detest Ant build files.
>> I'd actually prefer regular make files.
>>
>>
>>>
>>> The other issues I have with it is that I actually *need* the
>>> flexibility in deployment structure. In some projects I *don't* want
>>> all-embedded builds as that stuff goes out of hand with 7 apps*all
>>> the frameworks. The resulting release tops 250M. So I want some of
>>> them embed only some jars. Show me how this works with maven
>>> *without* writing any "goals" or "mojos".
>>
>> Well, now you're bottoming out my maven knowledge, as I'm not quite
>> sure what you're complaining about.
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> So in summary, maven may or may not be nice. But I've been building
>>> Wonder with the build files for 7 years now and they haven't really
>>> changed a lot in this time. They do the roughly the same as some 20MB
>>> tool chain where you *still* have to write java plugins for.
>>
>> And I have to maintain a build that's based on some stale snapshot of
>> the Wonder build files, and given a choice between grokking
>> generic.xml and or throwing it out and learning maven, I'm leaning
>> towards Maven, because its sucked so far. Of course, the latest Wonder
>> generic.xml looks a lot cleaner then what I have now, so that's not
>> necessarily a fair criticism. But maybe it is, because I would never
>> have dived into Wonder to tweak the Ant builds, but tweaking the Maven
>> builds was pretty simple.
>>
>> But as I keep saying, you use the same recipe you get the same bread.
>> The Wonder Ant build and the Maven build at the end of the day have to
>> do the same steps and need the same information. Ant, being more
>> explicit, ends up pushing you towards a generic.xml type solution,
>> where every step in the build is spelled out explicitly, but a certain
>> folder layout is assumed, and certain things are stored in external
>> files. That way, you can use the same Ant build script over and over.
>>
>> Maven, being more implicit, ends up pulling the equivalent of
>> generic.xml into these plugin definitions based on the assumption that
>> all WO framework projects have to be built the same way for all
>> developers. That leaves the project specific information to be
>> specified somewhere like the project name and dependencies. Which goes
>> in one place, the pom.xml.
>>
>> So at the end of the day, to use Wonder's generic.xml, you have to
>> setup your folder structure in a certain way and put certain
>> information in .classpath, .patternset, and .properties files. To use
>> maven, you have to setup your folder structure in a certain way and
>> put that same information in pom.xml. At the system level you have to
>> think of Ant as Ant plus the generic.xml you're using, and at that
>> point, Ant+Wonder Build Scripts == Maven. Maven just goes on to
>> leverage the information in the pom in other ways.
>>
>> This title of this post is "Maven Optimism", following up from "Maven
>> Skepticism". I'm still a long way from being a maven expert, but I've
>> sort of refused to become an Ant expert. But so far, I'm a lot more
>> optimistic about being able to use Maven effectively. I think it
>> brings a lot to the table, and solves some tough development issues.
>>
>> Pierce
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