On Thu, September 27, 2007 8:09 pm, Stefan Prange wrote: > there are two reasons. > 1. I didn't want to create a new java project only to package an EAR file. > Well, this reason is not quite cogent, I suppose. When using Maven one > should engage with Maven's multi module approach.
We relented and converted our ant based ejb+ear, to a maven ejb module, and a maven ear module. It was way simpler than trying to do it all in one go. It was also siginificantly quicker for developers too, as building the ejb doesn't involve the time wasting phase of building the ear file. > 2. I want my EAR file named after a predefined pattern. It shall be name > like appname.ear_<timestamp>, e.g. "appname.ear_20070927". I tried to > achieve this with Maven before (with build/finalname) but with no success. > ANT allows me to name the resulting EAR file whatever I like. Is there a reason you want this particular pattern? What following the maven defaults buys you is that you get a whole lot of downstream functionality for free. We relented and let maven call our ear file my-project-ear-4.3.2.ear, and we had to tweak some code in our app accordingly to support this. We make releases of our code using the maven-release-plugin, which handles the tagging, the building and deploying to our internal maven repository for us, for free. If we had done the ear step with ant, then we would have been forced to do the tagging, building and deploying ourselves by hand, and we would have had to train each developer on the team how to support our proprietry methods themselves, a real headache. Instead in our case, each member of the team takes it in turn to act as release manager (to spread the knowledge), and they follow a relatively simple recipe to prepare and perform the release, not caring about the details - the details are maven's job. In our case, on a very complex system involving 5 multi module projects, about 20 artifacts (jars, ejbs, ears), and an Eclipse RCP application, can be formally released and made available in our repo beginning to end in 30 minutes. Thinking about this one of the key differences in using ant and maven is this: When using ant, the developer asks "how do I do X?". When using maven, the developer asks "how does maven do X". Maven already knows how to do "stuff", but on condition you follow the conventions. Following the conventions in maven is in the vast majority of cases less work for you in the long run. Regards, Graham -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
