We have a multi-module setup whereby we have about 150 independent modules.
Our build takes a long time and actually slows down development as we have to do a compile of a LOT of source code to rebuild the project. Additionally, we have a lot of code that we want to Open Source. This has meant git submodules the IMO git submodules really don’t work when using branches. They break and require a whole bunch of custom works and hack and when they DO break it’s confusing how to resolve them. This has meant that we’ve not really done a good job of OSSing our code base as its just too hard. What we’ve done to date is just have one major version number across all our projects. So upgrading them and fixing their dependencies means that I just have to change a version number everywhere and I’m done. What I was thinking of is changing this strategy to use the maven "versions:use-latest-versions” plugin. What i would do is have a parent directory named ‘spinn3r’ which just has a bunch of git submodules. We NEVER branch in this directory. It also means that any of our developers can check it out so that they have all of our source code. At this point I can use a normal development strategy for each project. They don’t use submodules which enables us to branch/merge easily. I can also have a dedicated IntelliJ or Eclipse project for each one and switch between them. Now the main issue I have is how do I bump releases easily and make sure all my code is using the latest version of its sibling projects. In the parent directory I can just run versions:use-latest-versions … on each one of the projects so that it automatically pulled in the latest version after a release. The only problem here is that there’s a dependency graph that needs to be considered. for example, if project A depends on project B, then we have to bump the version and push project B into maven before we upgrade dependencies on project A. This is a frustrating issue… -- We’re hiring if you know of any awesome Java Devops or Linux Operations Engineers! Founder/CEO Spinn3r.com Location: *San Francisco, CA* blog: http://burtonator.wordpress.com … or check out my Google+ profile <https://plus.google.com/102718274791889610666/posts>
