So you are saying that Maven IS hard because someone doesn't understand a huge project that they've never used before? You are saying that if it was done in ant it would be easier to understand? I find that extremely hard to believe.
I've read plenty of articles written that I thought explained nicely what Maven 2 is. If there is no good paragraph on the Maven website about what it is, then why would someone have started using it if they didn't know? If people are going nuts installing every plugin on the planet and then wondering why they can't understand Maven, then I have no pity for them. You don't start off programming by trying to do something complicated. Anyone that does that is asking for trouble, and can't blame that on the tool. Tools are tools, they can be misused and abused. With anything, someone has to have realistic expectations and expect to learn rather than just be productive instantly. I got started with Maven by simply building a jar, then a webapp (all documented on their site) and then added stuff to it as I needed. I've never had a problem and never felt lost to the point of frustration. On 9/24/07, Graham Leggett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Denis Bessmertniy wrote: > > > It is interesting why maven is so hard to understand? Why it is not well > > documented? (It is all my own opinions) > > I haven't so much probmlems with Ant, for example. > > I am in the process of doing a handover of a fully mavenised build (all > the way through to using the release plugin for releases) to someone who > has only ever used ant before, and this process has highlighted that > maven IS hard for a beginner to understand. > > Maven's first problem is that it is not described anywhere neatly in one > single paragraph. To a maven beginner, "project comprehension tool" is > entirely meaningless: Why do I need a tool to help me "comprehend" my > project? It makes no sense to a beginner. > > I have tried to explain maven by calling it an "extensible Swiss Army > Knife": Rather than telling ant how to do every step of your build, > maven already knows how to do every step of your build. You just add the > missing bits of information like your project name and version number, > and maven does the rest automatically. > > Another thing a beginner gets confused about is the bewildering volume > of plugins. To cut through this confusion I grouped plugins into the > basic core group of plugins, and all the other plugins after people ran > with the idea and went bananas. Getting across to the user that they > don't have to learn to use every plugin, but only the ones they need, is > very reassuring for a new user. > > Something else new users get worried about is "what happens if maven > cannot do what I want maven to do", and here pointing out "if all else > fails" strategies like using the antrun plugin to get ant to do stuff > for you is very reassuring to the new user. The new user doesn't need to > know how the antrun plugin works, they only need to know that it is there. > > Regards, > Graham > -- > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >
