After reading this thread and the embedded references I believe much of
this information should be captured and added to http://maven.apache.org
- in particular under "Learning About Maven" the very first topic should
be "The Maven Way." As well, if you go to
http://maven.apache.org/what-is-maven.html then one of the first things
you should see is a link to "The Maven Way."
Newbies in particular should be guided as soon as possible to this
philosophical discussion about Maven, and how to best learn and master
Maven, before anything else. People need to be clear about "Convention
over Configuration" - they may not agree with the pattern, but it should
be made clear to them that by embracing this pattern they will likely
find Maven a much more satisfying experience.
The surrounding text should catch the newbie's attention right away and
guide them to this philosophical discussion with phrases like "If you
are new to Maven please read 'The Maven Way' to get the most satisfying
Maven experience." Maybe some humor is also appropriate "I fought Maven,
and Maven won" - maybe we can revise the original Clash lyrics
Pulling hair cause my build's not done
I fought Maven and Maven won [x2]
I need a break cause my build's not done
I fought Maven and Maven won [x2]
I left my Ant and it feels so bad
Guess my build won't run
It's the best tool that I ever had
I fought Maven and Maven won
I fought Maven and
Swear'n like a son of a gun
I fought Maven and Maven won [x2]
I miss my Ant and I miss my fun
I fought Maven and Maven won [x2]
I left my Ant and it feels so bad
Guess my build won't run
It's the best tool that I ever had
I fought Maven and Maven won
I fought Maven and
I fought Maven and Maven won [x7]
I fought Maven and
Chad's article
http://zeroinsertionforce.blogspot.ca/2012/04/maven-does-not-suck-but-maven-docs-do.html
has some really valuable insight, especially about patterns. Too few
people understand the importance of patterns - myself included - and we
need to be reminded of this.
Eric's insight http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#goal
on how to ask questions is also valuable - to both the person trying to
learn Maven, but more importantly to the people trying to document and
explain Maven. In my own job we struggle with documenting our products
because users often complain that our documentation is only a reference
that is useful if you mostly know how to do something, but terrible at
identifying common goals and the processes to achieve them.
Many kudos to Barrie for taking the pragmatic step to open a JIRA issue
on this.
My own pet peeve with Maven is that when something goes wrong - the
diagnostics you get can be exceedingly hard to fathom (especially for
newbies) - and often very misleading to what the actual cause of the
problem is. In many cases when I quoted the diagnostic messages on
[email protected] I got back all kinds of bizarre answers and
suggestions because other people also were mislead by the diagnostics.
If someone is looking for an idea for a PhD or postdoc project - please
build an "Intelligent System" to figure out why my Maven build is hosed
and explain it to me with some meaningful diagnostics - even better -
suggest possible fixes the way m2e does (but just better).
This has been great discussion - thanks to all who participated :-)
Special thanks to Wolf who got this discussion started.
Cheers, Eric
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