Nontrivial software projects need build
tools. In the Java world, there’s no shortage of these tools, with
Ant being the standard.

Maven is another project management/build tool on the open source scene.
Maven, which is compatible with Ant, is a project management tool
that takes Ant concepts several steps further. Maven isn’t built on
top of Ant, but it can take advantage of, and even generate, Ant
build scripts.

In order to use Maven, you must first create a
Project Object Model (POM). The default POM is the project.xml
file. The POM describes your application and its dependencies.
Maven uses the POM to build your project and related documentation.
Once you have a basic project.xml file, you can use it as a
template for all of your projects.

Maven has goals, which are roughly analogous to
Ant’s targets. Maven also has many useful predefined goals for
compiling, deploying, generating documentation, generating Ant
build scripts, and creating jars, wars, ears, etc. It’s all built
right in. And if there’s something missing, you can build your own
plug-ins without too much effort.

Two of Maven’s coolest features are jar
repositories and project site generation. Jar repositories are
local or remote sites that contain jar files. When you document a
jar dependency in your POM at build time, Maven will automatically
download the necessary version of the jar into its local
repository. This feature can make building your projects less
painful. The project site generation goal creates a professional
Web site of your project, including links to syntax highlighted
source code, code metrics, javadoc, unit test results, and
more.

One common (and valid) complaint about Maven is
that sometimes it’s slow. Some developers have resorted to using
Maven to create an Ant file that they use for daily development,
and then use Maven to distribute their projects or as part of a
nightly build process.

In any case, the features that Maven provides
make it deserving of at least a serious evaluation.

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