Hi, I have long been a user of Maven, but disfavoured the xml verbosity. With Maven 3 I am aware of the polyglot capabilities of using Groovy or YAML for pom files, but I would still prefer the xml syntax for a while.
A few years ago, a JIRA was raised [1], and an experimental branch created as a proof-of-concept, introducing attributed based configuration, having entities like: <dependencies> <dependency groupId="junit" artifactId="junit" version="3.8.1" scope="test"/> </dependencies> Which I think is a good format. It is easier to compact a full pom file and see what goes on, and it still verifies against a DTD. However, it may contradict existing tools and behaviours. Alternatively mix the current model with a namespaced schema-extension, which could provide attributed based primitives for the most common items. Does anyone know if this has been reconsider inside Maven 3 at all or is the polyglot solution the path to the future maven configuration? Regards Niels B Nielsen | Lead Engineer J.P. Morgan | IBTech Global Rates Derivatives [1] http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/MNG-3397 This email is confidential and subject to important disclaimers and conditions including on offers for the purchase or sale of securities, accuracy and completeness of information, viruses, confidentiality, legal privilege, and legal entity disclaimers, available at http://www.jpmorgan.com/pages/disclosures/email.