RFC: J2 Build System

[Randy Watler <wa...@wispertel.net>]

J2 Users:

The J2 development team has an open vote underway on the future
direction of the J2 build system. For many practical reasons, it is time
that we as a community make a decision on what, if anything, we are
going to base the future releases of J2 on. In a nutshell, there are
three options:

1 - Stay with a capped Maven 1.X based system and its plugin as
currently architected.
2 - Upgrade to Maven 2.0+, porting the existing plugin genapp features
to a Maven 2 archetype.
3 - Stick with a plain Ant based build with dependencies jars checked
into the project source control system, (svn).

As you might appreciate, this topic has many complex trade offs
associated with it. As part of the J2 community, we would like you all
to have a voice in this decision... after all, J2 users will have to
live with this decision just as we do ourselves.

For those that would like to read up on this thread, here is one mail
archive link:

http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/portals-jetspeed-dev/200602.mbox/%3c1140460898.3217.54.camel@localhost.localdomain%3e

Please feel free to comment on this thread or the dev list thread.

Thanks in advance for your feedback,

Randy



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Re: RFC: J2 Build System

[Matthew Ryan <ma...@matthewryan.info>]

So many people have found Maven a stumbling block to getting started I think
that for all the benefits it does more harm than good.

People like myself swarmed to Jetspeed 2, got a little bogged down, have hung in
there for a period of time (admittedly not helping at all but waiting for good
persons to contribute and do all the work) and along the way lost focus on J2
and started to sniff around at other open source JSR-168 portals.

In defense of not contributing I myself have wanted to find an open source
platform that I can take advantage of and allow me to focus on business
requirements for portlet / application development.

Ant, with all the jars bundled, can be a painful download but we're all already
using Ant and throwing another tool like Maven into the mix, despite is great
features, hurts more than helps.

Regards,

Matt


Quoting Randy Watler <wa...@wispertel.net>:

> J2 Users:
>
> The J2 development team has an open vote underway on the future
> direction of the J2 build system. For many practical reasons, it is time
> that we as a community make a decision on what, if anything, we are
> going to base the future releases of J2 on. In a nutshell, there are
> three options:
>
> 1 - Stay with a capped Maven 1.X based system and its plugin as
> currently architected.
> 2 - Upgrade to Maven 2.0+, porting the existing plugin genapp features
> to a Maven 2 archetype.
> 3 - Stick with a plain Ant based build with dependencies jars checked
> into the project source control system, (svn).
>
> As you might appreciate, this topic has many complex trade offs
> associated with it. As part of the J2 community, we would like you all
> to have a voice in this decision... after all, J2 users will have to
> live with this decision just as we do ourselves.
>
> For those that would like to read up on this thread, here is one mail
> archive link:
>
>
http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/portals-jetspeed-dev/200602.mbox/%3c1140460898.3217.54.camel@localhost.localdomain%3e
>
> Please feel free to comment on this thread or the dev list thread.
>
> Thanks in advance for your feedback,
>
> Randy
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: jetspeed-user-unsubscribe@portals.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: jetspeed-user-help@portals.apache.org
>



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Re: RFC: J2 Build System

[Andreas Schildbach <an...@schildbach.de>]

I would like to add that Maven is the main reason I did not buy into 
Jetspeed yet; I am utterly dependant on precompiled/configured binary 
releases because I don't want to mess with Maven.

I'd go for Ant as soon as possible.


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Re: RFC: J2 Build System

[Mikko Wuokko <Mi...@evtek.fi>]

I don't see how people can really say anything about how bad maven is if 
they haven't tried it for starters. I cannot say that I'm an expert on 
either Maven or Ant, but fas as I have understood that the real strength 
in Maven is the reduced initial download size as you don't need to 
download all the dependencies as well and not all of them at all 
depending on what you're doing. The dependencies stay more up-to-date 
also. And of course the build management :)

I did have my troubles getting started with Maven, but it wasn't that 
hard after all. And you should understand that when starting to use a 
new project manager (or how do you call them), whether it is Ant or 
Maven or something else, that it takes its own time to get in. Not 
everyone are experienced and familiar with Ant (like myself), so it was 
quite the same for me which it was.

The Maven 1 configurations are confusing, yes, but a lot, I think, has 
been improved in Maven 2. Building the Jetspeed (the current trunk) is 
simple as this

mvn -P tomcat

well, yes, you have to copy and modify the settings.xml file but it is 
much more simpler than the Maven 1 build.properties. Here is the thing 
where more detailed documentation should be, that what these all 
configuration parameters are? If you just want to see how Jetspeed looks 
like, there are the installers, but if you want to get your hand on it, 
you must be prepared to get them a little bit dirty.

I don't have exact idea how hard is to make all the dependencies and 
build configurations for Maven 2 than on Maven 1 or Ant, but as there 
was a post which said they are more demanding, if it makes the portal 
developing and building easier, isn't that a good thing? I think it 
would scare more people away (expecially the freshmen) if the 
development is made easier on the price of a more complicated building.

Also the other portals projects (bridges, wsrp4j) are apparently 
transferring to M2 and consistency is always a good thing.

Personally I would bet for the Maven 2, but I'm not a committer 
struggling with the inheritance and transitive dependencies (maybe somday).

I trust you make a good decision.

-Mikko

Randy Watler wrote:
> J2 Users:
> 
> The J2 development team has an open vote underway on the future
> direction of the J2 build system. For many practical reasons, it is time
> that we as a community make a decision on what, if anything, we are
> going to base the future releases of J2 on. In a nutshell, there are
> three options:
> 
> 1 - Stay with a capped Maven 1.X based system and its plugin as
> currently architected.
> 2 - Upgrade to Maven 2.0+, porting the existing plugin genapp features
> to a Maven 2 archetype.
> 3 - Stick with a plain Ant based build with dependencies jars checked
> into the project source control system, (svn).
> 
> As you might appreciate, this topic has many complex trade offs
> associated with it. As part of the J2 community, we would like you all
> to have a voice in this decision... after all, J2 users will have to
> live with this decision just as we do ourselves.
> 
> For those that would like to read up on this thread, here is one mail
> archive link:
> 
> http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/portals-jetspeed-dev/200602.mbox/%3c1140460898.3217.54.camel@localhost.localdomain%3e
> 
> Please feel free to comment on this thread or the dev list thread.
> 
> Thanks in advance for your feedback,
> 
> Randy
> 
> 
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: jetspeed-user-unsubscribe@portals.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: jetspeed-user-help@portals.apache.org
> 


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RE: RFC: J2 Build System

[Frank Villarreal <f_...@tetco.com>]

+1


> small, my vote would be to see the build changed to ant.


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Re: RFC: J2 Build System

[Michael Johnson <mj...@secretagents.us>]

I would tend to agree with Michael. Mavens documentation is really poor. 
Once you start using it for a period of time you can somewhat hack your 
way through it. Ant is widely accepted for building projects large and 
small, my vote would be to see the build changed to ant.

-MJ


Michael Johnson
www.hackedby.us


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Re: RFC: J2 Build System

["Dr. Michael Lipp" <Mi...@danet.de>]

I have recently commented on a blog "Why do you Hate Maven?", let me
cite myself ;-)

    "I was first confronted with maven when I tried to understand
    the building of an OS project [that was Jetspeed2]. That's
    when I started hating it, because it took me days to find out.
    There is no simple introduction. I didn't want to buy a
    philosophy, I just needed a different packing of a jar. Had
    it been ant, this would have been a matter of minutes."

If there is the opportunity to get maven out of Jetspeed2, seize it and
hold tight!

Looking at the referenced mail
(http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/portals-jetspeed-dev/200602.mbox/%3c1140460898.3217.54.camel@localhost.localdomain%3e)
I can hardly see any trade-offs: the only "con" for ant is that "Ant
build.xml files can become unmanageable." This is true. But as I know
from experience, this can be overcome if you carefully design the build
system, especially the hierarchy.

Regards,

    Michael Lipp

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Re: RFC: J2 Build System

[Raj Saini <ra...@gmail.com>]

As long as a build tool serve its purpose, it does not matter to end
user what it is. I have used Ant and Maven in the past. Ant is good
when you have a simple project and little dependencies on other jars.
I like the idea of Maven if it really does the job. It becomes really
painful when it takes weeks just to build jetspeed from source.

I am not sure how good maven2 is. We can learn from the experience of
other users of Maven2. If it really does the job as advertised, I
think we should give it a try.

Regards,

Raj
On 2/21/06, Randy Watler <wa...@wispertel.net> wrote:
> J2 Users:
>
> The J2 development team has an open vote underway on the future
> direction of the J2 build system. For many practical reasons, it is time
> that we as a community make a decision on what, if anything, we are
> going to base the future releases of J2 on. In a nutshell, there are
> three options:
>
> 1 - Stay with a capped Maven 1.X based system and its plugin as
> currently architected.
> 2 - Upgrade to Maven 2.0+, porting the existing plugin genapp features
> to a Maven 2 archetype.
> 3 - Stick with a plain Ant based build with dependencies jars checked
> into the project source control system, (svn).
>
> As you might appreciate, this topic has many complex trade offs
> associated with it. As part of the J2 community, we would like you all
> to have a voice in this decision... after all, J2 users will have to
> live with this decision just as we do ourselves.
>
> For those that would like to read up on this thread, here is one mail
> archive link:
>
> http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/portals-jetspeed-dev/200602.mbox/%3c1140460898.3217.54.camel@localhost.localdomain%3e
>
> Please feel free to comment on this thread or the dev list thread.
>
> Thanks in advance for your feedback,
>
> Randy
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: jetspeed-user-unsubscribe@portals.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: jetspeed-user-help@portals.apache.org
>
>

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