Hi Brian --
I certainly do agree with you that the maven website / documentation
definitely needs the improvements you outlined. However, if you are relying
on documentation to cover up for maven's deficiencies that is a waste of
time. Good documentation supports a good product but it can't be expected to
act as a band-aid for maven's usability issues.
Now I use maven every day. So I am not throwing rocks from the sidelines at
all. I have used maven for a year. I am using it to build my company's
product. But I have neither the time, nor desire to be a maven expert.
And that is the fundamental problem,:
Software developers assume that the user is a novice who wants to become an
expert, or an expert.
There is no allowance for the reality that the vast majority of users are
**comfortably mediocre**. That is to say they are not beginners ("don't need
that wizard thank you very much") but also have no desire to become experts
("manager pays me to write features not become maven expert").
In maven it is very easy to get started. Put everything in magical
directories and magic happens. But lets say you forgot a command in maven?
what does "mvn help" or "mvn -?" get the end user?
Some goobly-gook about plugins or some very useless commandline arguments!
Some basic things that are a pain to do in maven:
1. How do you copy a file from one directory to another just before a
war is constructed? I haven't a flipping clue!
2. How do I have maven run my project... once again not a clue... ( or
just spit out a commandline that I can pipe to a .bat file)
3. How about making sure all files needed are available so I can run
disconnected?
4. How about being able to answer the question... why is this jar in
my build?
5. How do I exclude a jar from my build no matter what dependency asks
for it?
Not that there isn't a way to do it but keep in mind if it is harder to do
something in maven than in a shell script there is a problem! And telling me
to RTFM is just rude. I am working 14 hours a day and my kids want me to
spend time with them. Am I going to spend time learning maven or playing
with my 5-year-old?
Telling me that I should be an expert in maven is just ridiculous. Being an
expert in maven is not going to make my company successful. Being an expert
in powerpoint has a better ROI than being a maven expert!
So rather than spend time on a web site (which I rather not visit) -- take
the time to make the simple, simple in maven, and to maven help out the
user.
And for C*tsake make mvn help do something!
I would suggest for starters look at what perforce's client does to help out
user. Until mvn has at least that level of help, I wouldn't even bother
spending the time on the website.
As a *mediocre* user, I don't care how superior maven's plugin architecture
is... I am never going to write a plugin anyhow -- no time! I will use a
shell script first.
Long live the *mediocre* user... and support them...
-Pat
P.S. sorry if I am a little harsh but I have lived this problem for too many
years in too many companies.
On 9/26/07, Brian E. Fox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> A common theme in the "maven is hard" thread is bad documentation and
> I'd like to explore this a little. For the sake of discussion, lets
> separate the plugin docs from the maven site. (Why? Because each plugin
> site is like it's own little world and some are good and some are bad.
> We can have that discussion after)
>
>
