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Posted to users@maven.apache.org by Sebastien Arbogast <se...@gmail.com> on 2006/07/15 18:10:40 UTC
Maven book: feedback
Hi,
I'm currently in the process of reading "Better builds with Maven" and
to be honnest... I'm quite disappointed. I found "Maven Developer's
notebook" for Maven 1 excellent, and I said it a few times on this
list. It's even one of the books I used the most often for some time.
And when Vincent Massol announced at JavaPolis in last december that a
free Maven2 book was on its way, I was very excited, because I dreamt
of such a good book combined with all the marvels of Maven2 that he
demonstrated.
When I started reading "Better Builds with Maven" for the first time,
just after it was released, I was quickly annoyed by the number of
errors and the inconsistence of sample source code with what was
reproduced in the book. So I waited for the updated version with
corrected errata and I'm reading it right now... and I'm somewhat
disappointed because it puzzles me more than anything.
It starts off with a very basic introduction to what is Maven, how it
was designed... and suddenly, it jumps straight up to web services and
very elaborated samples that have nothing to do with a progressive and
pragmatic approach. Even worse: samples are full of noise concerning
exotic plugins and their configuration and the structure is very...
weird.
I'm not into free criticism, but I think feedback is important, even
when it's negative. And based on that, I would like to know if there
is a Maven2 Developer's Notebook in the pipeline, something more
pragmatic, something simpler, something that would give justice to the
beauty of Maven2. Because I'm afraid this one could frighten new users
more than encourage them to abandon their old Ant scripts. Because I
would even be ready to pay a few tens of bucks just to get the same
experience I had with the first O'Reilly volume. And because
obviously, I miss a lot of knowledge to write it myself.
Once again, don't take me wrong: this is not free criticism, this is
just my humble yet negative feedback as a user who's been using Maven1
for about a year and a half on personal and professional projects, and
who's looking for an efficient and comprehensive reference book to
migrate to Maven 2 and understand its changes pragmatically and
progressively.
--
Sébastien Arbogast
http://www.sebastien-arbogast.com
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Re: Maven book: feedback
Posted by "Henning P. Schmiedehausen" <hp...@intermeta.de>.
"Sebastien Arbogast" <se...@gmail.com> writes:
>> OTOH there's already open documentation on the Maven wiki and in Maven's
>> svn. It's not because it's open that people contribute more or that the
>> quality is better...
>IMHO, Wiki is too open, SVN is not open enough. A CMS would be a
>middle-alternative allowing people to add remarks without modifying
>the original content. And only "committers" could decide to synthetize
>a few remarks and create a new version of the content.
You might want to take a look at the "html documentation with user comments"
that MySQL and PHP use very successfully.
Best regards
Henning
--
Dipl.-Inf. (Univ.) Henning P. Schmiedehausen INTERMETA GmbH
hps@intermeta.de +49 9131 50 654 0 http://www.intermeta.de/
RedHat Certified Engineer -- Jakarta Turbine Development -- hero for hire
Linux, Java, perl, Solaris -- Consulting, Training, Development
Social behaviour: Bavarians can be extremely egalitarian and folksy.
-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bavaria
Most Franconians do not like to be called Bavarians.
-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franconia
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Re: Maven book: feedback
Posted by Jeff Mutonho <ej...@gmail.com>.
Vincent , I guess the lack of flow is what I perhaps was trying to
illustrate in our chat the other day.To a total newbie , things get
pretty confusing as to how to put it all together in order to have a
working build environment.I wouldn't be a good thing for people to be
scared away from M2 just because there's no clear documentation , for
such a great build tool.
--
Jeff Mutonho
Cape Town
South Africa
GoogleTalk : ejbengine
Skype : ejbengine
Registered Linux user number 366042
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Re: Maven book: feedback
Posted by Brett Porter <br...@gmail.com>.
All,
While I appreciate the feedback, can I offer some suggestions on the
most effective way to give it...
Regarding the book from Mergere:
- send book feedback to community@mergere.com (same as for submitting
errata, see the front of the book)
Regarding the separate Maven documentation efforts:
- take a look at prior discussions on this list
- particularly take a look at recent discussions on
dev@maven.apache.org that talk about our current plan of action with
respect to the Maven documentation
- avoid "me too" comments, please. We've read it all before and we are
working on it (and you are welcome to help!)
If I could highlight how this is being approached:
- a lot of people are working on the plugin documentation, and there
is a standard format [1]
- there are a number of proposals for improving the site entrance and
navigation, eg [2]
- there are some other tasks up for grabs [3]
- there is a wiki anyone can contribute to. We eventually hope to
better structure this as a cookbook area that will be sucked directly
into a segment of the Maven site [4]
Thanks!
- Brett
[1] http://docs.codehaus.org/display/MAVEN/Maven+Plugin+Documentation
[2] http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/maven-dev/200606.mbox/%3c4496C4E9.2000703@apache.org%3e
[3] http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/maven-dev/200606.mbox/%3c4496B160.6050105@apache.org%3e
[4] http://docs.codehaus.org/display/MAVENUSER/Home
On 17/07/06, Matilda Robert <ma...@wfinet.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I agree. I have been working with Maven 2.0 for a little over three months
> now and reading the book is extremely complex. I use the text as a guide
> and post my questions to the user groups and find results either here or
> online through other resources. I look to a variety of maven 2.0 web sites
> to find out svn commands that work in mvn and cargo plugins. I took all of
> my troubleshooting issues and created a log on it so that whenever I have a
> problem that I have seen before I just look at my guide to solve it. Last
> week I had a problem with a cargo command and thought that my file was
> corrupted, looking in the M2 user guide text my url was correct but through
> using this user list I found out that the cargo plugin that I was using was
> out of date. I believe that something like this should be posted. I
> actually found this at http://cargo.codehaus.org/Maven2+plugin this website.
>
>
> There is a lot of information online for maven so don't just limit yourself
> directly to the book. I found that blogs also help. This is open source
> material so we have to treat it as such, extra research is involved in
> getting the pom.xml file to work correctly. I also found that the
> dependencies aren't complete for all programs like weblogic, but are
> completed in others. These are things that I figured out after days of
> programming and finding weird error messages only to find out that there
> weren't plugins for that software yet. I guess one learns from experience
> right. I hope that some of this information can help others that are new to
> Maven so that they know that the user guide is just that a guide and not the
> only source for information.
>
> Matilda
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael.Wiles@sanlam.co.za [mailto:Michael.Wiles@sanlam.co.za]
> Sent: Monday, July 17, 2006 8:29 AM
> To: Maven Users List
> Subject: Re: Maven book: feedback
>
> Have been following this thread with interest.
>
> One of my biggest issues with maven 2 is that the documentation is very
> poor. Yes, I know there is a book on it, but I did not find the book very
> helpful...
>
> The maven book takes a far too high level approach and does not give
> detailed instructions on how to use particular plugins.
>
> For instance, I was looking at getting a maven to build, test and deploy a
> site with a few basic reports - jdepends, checkstyle and javadoc.
>
> It was in fact very difficult. I had to post to the group to find out how
> to download jdepends.
>
> A simple, step by step, "getting started with maven 2" or "maven 2 by
> example", is the kind of thing I think is required. The maven book while
> valuable is not as hands on as I'd like, nor does it give any details
> about how to use particular plugins.
>
> The maven 2 documentation in general is not great. Some kind of wiki/cms
> approach would I feel be the best way to improve this situation. i.e. let
> the community contribute to the documentation. The head knowledge is
> definitely out there, this mailing list bears testimony to that.
>
> One area where I think things can be greatly improved is in documentation
> on the settings.xml - yes, there is a page on it, but it is not very
> detailed. A sample settings.xml would be a good start.
>
> Maven is a great tool, it would be a pity to slow its adoption because of
> documentation, especially as the knowledge is out there.
>
> Michael Wiles
> Java Developer
>
>
> Disclaimer
> Sanlam Life Insurance Limited Reg no 1998/021121/06 - Licensed Financial
> Services Provider
> Disclaimer and Directors
>
>
> -----------------------------------------
> Attention:
> Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual
> sender, except where the message states otherwise and the sender is
> authorized to state them to be the views of any such entity. The
> information contained in this message and or attachments is
> intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and
> may contain confidential and/or privileged material. If you
> received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the
> material from any system and destroy any copies.
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@maven.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@maven.apache.org
>
>
--
Apache Maven - http://maven.apache.org
"Better Builds with Maven" book - http://library.mergere.com/
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RE: Maven book: feedback
Posted by Matilda Robert <ma...@wfinet.com>.
Hi,
I agree. I have been working with Maven 2.0 for a little over three months
now and reading the book is extremely complex. I use the text as a guide
and post my questions to the user groups and find results either here or
online through other resources. I look to a variety of maven 2.0 web sites
to find out svn commands that work in mvn and cargo plugins. I took all of
my troubleshooting issues and created a log on it so that whenever I have a
problem that I have seen before I just look at my guide to solve it. Last
week I had a problem with a cargo command and thought that my file was
corrupted, looking in the M2 user guide text my url was correct but through
using this user list I found out that the cargo plugin that I was using was
out of date. I believe that something like this should be posted. I
actually found this at http://cargo.codehaus.org/Maven2+plugin this website.
There is a lot of information online for maven so don't just limit yourself
directly to the book. I found that blogs also help. This is open source
material so we have to treat it as such, extra research is involved in
getting the pom.xml file to work correctly. I also found that the
dependencies aren't complete for all programs like weblogic, but are
completed in others. These are things that I figured out after days of
programming and finding weird error messages only to find out that there
weren't plugins for that software yet. I guess one learns from experience
right. I hope that some of this information can help others that are new to
Maven so that they know that the user guide is just that a guide and not the
only source for information.
Matilda
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael.Wiles@sanlam.co.za [mailto:Michael.Wiles@sanlam.co.za]
Sent: Monday, July 17, 2006 8:29 AM
To: Maven Users List
Subject: Re: Maven book: feedback
Have been following this thread with interest.
One of my biggest issues with maven 2 is that the documentation is very
poor. Yes, I know there is a book on it, but I did not find the book very
helpful...
The maven book takes a far too high level approach and does not give
detailed instructions on how to use particular plugins.
For instance, I was looking at getting a maven to build, test and deploy a
site with a few basic reports - jdepends, checkstyle and javadoc.
It was in fact very difficult. I had to post to the group to find out how
to download jdepends.
A simple, step by step, "getting started with maven 2" or "maven 2 by
example", is the kind of thing I think is required. The maven book while
valuable is not as hands on as I'd like, nor does it give any details
about how to use particular plugins.
The maven 2 documentation in general is not great. Some kind of wiki/cms
approach would I feel be the best way to improve this situation. i.e. let
the community contribute to the documentation. The head knowledge is
definitely out there, this mailing list bears testimony to that.
One area where I think things can be greatly improved is in documentation
on the settings.xml - yes, there is a page on it, but it is not very
detailed. A sample settings.xml would be a good start.
Maven is a great tool, it would be a pity to slow its adoption because of
documentation, especially as the knowledge is out there.
Michael Wiles
Java Developer
Disclaimer
Sanlam Life Insurance Limited Reg no 1998/021121/06 - Licensed Financial
Services Provider
Disclaimer and Directors
-----------------------------------------
Attention:
Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual
sender, except where the message states otherwise and the sender is
authorized to state them to be the views of any such entity. The
information contained in this message and or attachments is
intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and
may contain confidential and/or privileged material. If you
received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the
material from any system and destroy any copies.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
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Re: Maven book: feedback
Posted by Mi...@sanlam.co.za.
Have been following this thread with interest.
One of my biggest issues with maven 2 is that the documentation is very
poor. Yes, I know there is a book on it, but I did not find the book very
helpful...
The maven book takes a far too high level approach and does not give
detailed instructions on how to use particular plugins.
For instance, I was looking at getting a maven to build, test and deploy a
site with a few basic reports - jdepends, checkstyle and javadoc.
It was in fact very difficult. I had to post to the group to find out how
to download jdepends.
A simple, step by step, "getting started with maven 2" or "maven 2 by
example", is the kind of thing I think is required. The maven book while
valuable is not as hands on as I'd like, nor does it give any details
about how to use particular plugins.
The maven 2 documentation in general is not great. Some kind of wiki/cms
approach would I feel be the best way to improve this situation. i.e. let
the community contribute to the documentation. The head knowledge is
definitely out there, this mailing list bears testimony to that.
One area where I think things can be greatly improved is in documentation
on the settings.xml - yes, there is a page on it, but it is not very
detailed. A sample settings.xml would be a good start.
Maven is a great tool, it would be a pity to slow its adoption because of
documentation, especially as the knowledge is out there.
Michael Wiles
Java Developer
Disclaimer
Sanlam Life Insurance Limited Reg no 1998/021121/06 - Licensed Financial
Services Provider
Disclaimer and Directors
Re: Maven book: feedback
Posted by Sebastien Arbogast <se...@gmail.com>.
> OTOH there's already open documentation on the Maven wiki and in Maven's
> svn. It's not because it's open that people contribute more or that the
> quality is better...
IMHO, Wiki is too open, SVN is not open enough. A CMS would be a
middle-alternative allowing people to add remarks without modifying
the original content. And only "committers" could decide to synthetize
a few remarks and create a new version of the content.
I totally agree with you: it's not because it's open that people
contribute more or that the quality is better... but with the right
tools and methods, it's exactly what happens. Think of how Open Source
software works: anybody can propose patches, only committers can apply
them. With such an open documentation effort, everybody could submit
comments, only committers could rewrite sections to integrate those
remarks. PHP project has been doing that for years and their
documentation is wonderful: even non-committed comments are useful
because they offer very pragmatic and issue-driven answers to specific
problems.
We had exactly the same discussion last year with Cocoon community
when Mark Leicester and I tried to start an open documentation effort
for Cocoon (http://www.planetcocoon.com). I've always thought that
Apache's projects documentation could greatly benefit from such an
open approach for documentation.
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Sebastien Arbogast [mailto:sebastien.arbogast@gmail.com]
> > Sent: dimanche 16 juillet 2006 21:39
> > To: Maven Users List
> > Subject: Re: Maven book: feedback
> >
> > Why not trying to innovate then? Why not getting the source code of
> > the book available to the community and make its improvement a
> > community effort? It could be an interesting experiment: using the
> > current version as a working basis, you could allow people to pinpoint
> > parts that could be improved, and others could propose rewritten
> > sections.
> >
> > Technically, you could use a CMS, with one page for each subsection of
> > the book, and people could leave comments about each section.
> > Sometimes people could gather several remarks and rewrite the section
> > to take them into account, thus creating a new version of the section.
> > And that way, the book would be more dynamic andit would be easier to
> > update it as Maven evolves. I've already done that kind of things with
> > Drupal and it gave quite good results.
> >
> > What do you think ? Open Source documentation ?
> >
> > 2006/7/16, Vincent Massol <vi...@massol.net>:
> > > Hi Sebastien,
> > >
> > > I'm glad that you liked the m1 book ;-) but I'm sorry that you don't
> > like
> > > the new m2 one...
> > >
> > > There are probably several reasons. One of them may be that it's hard to
> > > write with a consistent voice and consistent progression when several
> > > authors write at the same time. OTOH this has allowed us to cover an
> > > important variety of topics and to release the book when it was needed.
> > >
> > > I guess the other hard part when we wrote the m2 book is that m2 was and
> > > still is evolving. This is one reason why an online format is a good
> > choice.
> > >
> > > So I guess that in order to improve in the next release of the m2 book
> > we
> > > should get someone to review/reorder/rewrite the junctions between the
> > > different chapters to get a more seamless flow between them and so that
> > the
> > > progression remains constant. What would make this even easier would be
> > to
> > > get help from the community to tell us precisely where things should be
> > > improved.
> > >
> > > AFAIK there's no Maven2 Developer's Notebook in the pipeline and I think
> > we
> > > should be able to improve this one over time. It's an online book and
> > thus
> > > has the power of being modified more easily.
> > >
> > > Thanks for your feedback.
> > > -Vincent
> > >
> > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > From: Sebastien Arbogast [mailto:sebastien.arbogast@gmail.com]
> > > > Sent: samedi 15 juillet 2006 18:11
> > > > To: Maven users list
> > > > Subject: Maven book: feedback
> > > >
> > > > Hi,
> > > >
> > > > I'm currently in the process of reading "Better builds with Maven" and
> > > > to be honnest... I'm quite disappointed. I found "Maven Developer's
> > > > notebook" for Maven 1 excellent, and I said it a few times on this
> > > > list. It's even one of the books I used the most often for some time.
> > > > And when Vincent Massol announced at JavaPolis in last december that a
> > > > free Maven2 book was on its way, I was very excited, because I dreamt
> > > > of such a good book combined with all the marvels of Maven2 that he
> > > > demonstrated.
> > > >
> > > > When I started reading "Better Builds with Maven" for the first time,
> > > > just after it was released, I was quickly annoyed by the number of
> > > > errors and the inconsistence of sample source code with what was
> > > > reproduced in the book. So I waited for the updated version with
> > > > corrected errata and I'm reading it right now... and I'm somewhat
> > > > disappointed because it puzzles me more than anything.
> > > >
> > > > It starts off with a very basic introduction to what is Maven, how it
> > > > was designed... and suddenly, it jumps straight up to web services and
> > > > very elaborated samples that have nothing to do with a progressive and
> > > > pragmatic approach. Even worse: samples are full of noise concerning
> > > > exotic plugins and their configuration and the structure is very...
> > > > weird.
> > > >
> > > > I'm not into free criticism, but I think feedback is important, even
> > > > when it's negative. And based on that, I would like to know if there
> > > > is a Maven2 Developer's Notebook in the pipeline, something more
> > > > pragmatic, something simpler, something that would give justice to the
> > > > beauty of Maven2. Because I'm afraid this one could frighten new users
> > > > more than encourage them to abandon their old Ant scripts. Because I
> > > > would even be ready to pay a few tens of bucks just to get the same
> > > > experience I had with the first O'Reilly volume. And because
> > > > obviously, I miss a lot of knowledge to write it myself.
> > > >
> > > > Once again, don't take me wrong: this is not free criticism, this is
> > > > just my humble yet negative feedback as a user who's been using Maven1
> > > > for about a year and a half on personal and professional projects, and
> > > > who's looking for an efficient and comprehensive reference book to
> > > > migrate to Maven 2 and understand its changes pragmatically and
> > > > progressively.
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > Sébastien Arbogast
> > > >
> > > > http://www.sebastien-arbogast.com
> > > >
> > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > > > To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@maven.apache.org
> > > > For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@maven.apache.org
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > __________________________________________________________________________
> > _
> > > Yahoo! Mail réinvente le mail ! Découvrez le nouveau Yahoo! Mail et son
> > interface révolutionnaire.
> > > http://fr.mail.yahoo.com
> > >
> > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > > To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@maven.apache.org
> > > For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@maven.apache.org
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Sébastien Arbogast
> >
> > http://www.sebastien-arbogast.com
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@maven.apache.org
> > For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@maven.apache.org
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ___________________________________________________________________________
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>
--
Sébastien Arbogast
http://www.sebastien-arbogast.com
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RE: Maven book: feedback
Posted by Vincent Massol <vi...@massol.net>.
I think it's hard to do when you start from scratch. However now that
there's a first version I believe it could work. We may still need some kind
of workflow and review process before accepting changes but yes it could
work.
OTOH there's already open documentation on the Maven wiki and in Maven's
svn. It's not because it's open that people contribute more or that the
quality is better...
The book belongs to Mergere, who has sponsored it. Thus it's not my choice
nor the community but rather Mergere's. I'm personally open to all
suggestions.
Thanks
-Vincent
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sebastien Arbogast [mailto:sebastien.arbogast@gmail.com]
> Sent: dimanche 16 juillet 2006 21:39
> To: Maven Users List
> Subject: Re: Maven book: feedback
>
> Why not trying to innovate then? Why not getting the source code of
> the book available to the community and make its improvement a
> community effort? It could be an interesting experiment: using the
> current version as a working basis, you could allow people to pinpoint
> parts that could be improved, and others could propose rewritten
> sections.
>
> Technically, you could use a CMS, with one page for each subsection of
> the book, and people could leave comments about each section.
> Sometimes people could gather several remarks and rewrite the section
> to take them into account, thus creating a new version of the section.
> And that way, the book would be more dynamic andit would be easier to
> update it as Maven evolves. I've already done that kind of things with
> Drupal and it gave quite good results.
>
> What do you think ? Open Source documentation ?
>
> 2006/7/16, Vincent Massol <vi...@massol.net>:
> > Hi Sebastien,
> >
> > I'm glad that you liked the m1 book ;-) but I'm sorry that you don't
> like
> > the new m2 one...
> >
> > There are probably several reasons. One of them may be that it's hard to
> > write with a consistent voice and consistent progression when several
> > authors write at the same time. OTOH this has allowed us to cover an
> > important variety of topics and to release the book when it was needed.
> >
> > I guess the other hard part when we wrote the m2 book is that m2 was and
> > still is evolving. This is one reason why an online format is a good
> choice.
> >
> > So I guess that in order to improve in the next release of the m2 book
> we
> > should get someone to review/reorder/rewrite the junctions between the
> > different chapters to get a more seamless flow between them and so that
> the
> > progression remains constant. What would make this even easier would be
> to
> > get help from the community to tell us precisely where things should be
> > improved.
> >
> > AFAIK there's no Maven2 Developer's Notebook in the pipeline and I think
> we
> > should be able to improve this one over time. It's an online book and
> thus
> > has the power of being modified more easily.
> >
> > Thanks for your feedback.
> > -Vincent
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Sebastien Arbogast [mailto:sebastien.arbogast@gmail.com]
> > > Sent: samedi 15 juillet 2006 18:11
> > > To: Maven users list
> > > Subject: Maven book: feedback
> > >
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > I'm currently in the process of reading "Better builds with Maven" and
> > > to be honnest... I'm quite disappointed. I found "Maven Developer's
> > > notebook" for Maven 1 excellent, and I said it a few times on this
> > > list. It's even one of the books I used the most often for some time.
> > > And when Vincent Massol announced at JavaPolis in last december that a
> > > free Maven2 book was on its way, I was very excited, because I dreamt
> > > of such a good book combined with all the marvels of Maven2 that he
> > > demonstrated.
> > >
> > > When I started reading "Better Builds with Maven" for the first time,
> > > just after it was released, I was quickly annoyed by the number of
> > > errors and the inconsistence of sample source code with what was
> > > reproduced in the book. So I waited for the updated version with
> > > corrected errata and I'm reading it right now... and I'm somewhat
> > > disappointed because it puzzles me more than anything.
> > >
> > > It starts off with a very basic introduction to what is Maven, how it
> > > was designed... and suddenly, it jumps straight up to web services and
> > > very elaborated samples that have nothing to do with a progressive and
> > > pragmatic approach. Even worse: samples are full of noise concerning
> > > exotic plugins and their configuration and the structure is very...
> > > weird.
> > >
> > > I'm not into free criticism, but I think feedback is important, even
> > > when it's negative. And based on that, I would like to know if there
> > > is a Maven2 Developer's Notebook in the pipeline, something more
> > > pragmatic, something simpler, something that would give justice to the
> > > beauty of Maven2. Because I'm afraid this one could frighten new users
> > > more than encourage them to abandon their old Ant scripts. Because I
> > > would even be ready to pay a few tens of bucks just to get the same
> > > experience I had with the first O'Reilly volume. And because
> > > obviously, I miss a lot of knowledge to write it myself.
> > >
> > > Once again, don't take me wrong: this is not free criticism, this is
> > > just my humble yet negative feedback as a user who's been using Maven1
> > > for about a year and a half on personal and professional projects, and
> > > who's looking for an efficient and comprehensive reference book to
> > > migrate to Maven 2 and understand its changes pragmatically and
> > > progressively.
> > >
> > > --
> > > Sébastien Arbogast
> > >
> > > http://www.sebastien-arbogast.com
> > >
> > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > > To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@maven.apache.org
> > > For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@maven.apache.org
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> __________________________________________________________________________
> _
> > Yahoo! Mail réinvente le mail ! Découvrez le nouveau Yahoo! Mail et son
> interface révolutionnaire.
> > http://fr.mail.yahoo.com
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@maven.apache.org
> > For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@maven.apache.org
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Sébastien Arbogast
>
> http://www.sebastien-arbogast.com
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@maven.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@maven.apache.org
___________________________________________________________________________
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Re: Maven book: feedback
Posted by Sebastien Arbogast <se...@gmail.com>.
Why not trying to innovate then? Why not getting the source code of
the book available to the community and make its improvement a
community effort? It could be an interesting experiment: using the
current version as a working basis, you could allow people to pinpoint
parts that could be improved, and others could propose rewritten
sections.
Technically, you could use a CMS, with one page for each subsection of
the book, and people could leave comments about each section.
Sometimes people could gather several remarks and rewrite the section
to take them into account, thus creating a new version of the section.
And that way, the book would be more dynamic andit would be easier to
update it as Maven evolves. I've already done that kind of things with
Drupal and it gave quite good results.
What do you think ? Open Source documentation ?
2006/7/16, Vincent Massol <vi...@massol.net>:
> Hi Sebastien,
>
> I'm glad that you liked the m1 book ;-) but I'm sorry that you don't like
> the new m2 one...
>
> There are probably several reasons. One of them may be that it's hard to
> write with a consistent voice and consistent progression when several
> authors write at the same time. OTOH this has allowed us to cover an
> important variety of topics and to release the book when it was needed.
>
> I guess the other hard part when we wrote the m2 book is that m2 was and
> still is evolving. This is one reason why an online format is a good choice.
>
> So I guess that in order to improve in the next release of the m2 book we
> should get someone to review/reorder/rewrite the junctions between the
> different chapters to get a more seamless flow between them and so that the
> progression remains constant. What would make this even easier would be to
> get help from the community to tell us precisely where things should be
> improved.
>
> AFAIK there's no Maven2 Developer's Notebook in the pipeline and I think we
> should be able to improve this one over time. It's an online book and thus
> has the power of being modified more easily.
>
> Thanks for your feedback.
> -Vincent
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Sebastien Arbogast [mailto:sebastien.arbogast@gmail.com]
> > Sent: samedi 15 juillet 2006 18:11
> > To: Maven users list
> > Subject: Maven book: feedback
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > I'm currently in the process of reading "Better builds with Maven" and
> > to be honnest... I'm quite disappointed. I found "Maven Developer's
> > notebook" for Maven 1 excellent, and I said it a few times on this
> > list. It's even one of the books I used the most often for some time.
> > And when Vincent Massol announced at JavaPolis in last december that a
> > free Maven2 book was on its way, I was very excited, because I dreamt
> > of such a good book combined with all the marvels of Maven2 that he
> > demonstrated.
> >
> > When I started reading "Better Builds with Maven" for the first time,
> > just after it was released, I was quickly annoyed by the number of
> > errors and the inconsistence of sample source code with what was
> > reproduced in the book. So I waited for the updated version with
> > corrected errata and I'm reading it right now... and I'm somewhat
> > disappointed because it puzzles me more than anything.
> >
> > It starts off with a very basic introduction to what is Maven, how it
> > was designed... and suddenly, it jumps straight up to web services and
> > very elaborated samples that have nothing to do with a progressive and
> > pragmatic approach. Even worse: samples are full of noise concerning
> > exotic plugins and their configuration and the structure is very...
> > weird.
> >
> > I'm not into free criticism, but I think feedback is important, even
> > when it's negative. And based on that, I would like to know if there
> > is a Maven2 Developer's Notebook in the pipeline, something more
> > pragmatic, something simpler, something that would give justice to the
> > beauty of Maven2. Because I'm afraid this one could frighten new users
> > more than encourage them to abandon their old Ant scripts. Because I
> > would even be ready to pay a few tens of bucks just to get the same
> > experience I had with the first O'Reilly volume. And because
> > obviously, I miss a lot of knowledge to write it myself.
> >
> > Once again, don't take me wrong: this is not free criticism, this is
> > just my humble yet negative feedback as a user who's been using Maven1
> > for about a year and a half on personal and professional projects, and
> > who's looking for an efficient and comprehensive reference book to
> > migrate to Maven 2 and understand its changes pragmatically and
> > progressively.
> >
> > --
> > Sébastien Arbogast
> >
> > http://www.sebastien-arbogast.com
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@maven.apache.org
> > For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@maven.apache.org
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ___________________________________________________________________________
> Yahoo! Mail réinvente le mail ! Découvrez le nouveau Yahoo! Mail et son interface révolutionnaire.
> http://fr.mail.yahoo.com
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@maven.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@maven.apache.org
>
>
--
Sébastien Arbogast
http://www.sebastien-arbogast.com
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RE: Maven book: feedback
Posted by Vincent Massol <vi...@massol.net>.
Hi Sebastien,
I'm glad that you liked the m1 book ;-) but I'm sorry that you don't like
the new m2 one...
There are probably several reasons. One of them may be that it's hard to
write with a consistent voice and consistent progression when several
authors write at the same time. OTOH this has allowed us to cover an
important variety of topics and to release the book when it was needed.
I guess the other hard part when we wrote the m2 book is that m2 was and
still is evolving. This is one reason why an online format is a good choice.
So I guess that in order to improve in the next release of the m2 book we
should get someone to review/reorder/rewrite the junctions between the
different chapters to get a more seamless flow between them and so that the
progression remains constant. What would make this even easier would be to
get help from the community to tell us precisely where things should be
improved.
AFAIK there's no Maven2 Developer's Notebook in the pipeline and I think we
should be able to improve this one over time. It's an online book and thus
has the power of being modified more easily.
Thanks for your feedback.
-Vincent
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sebastien Arbogast [mailto:sebastien.arbogast@gmail.com]
> Sent: samedi 15 juillet 2006 18:11
> To: Maven users list
> Subject: Maven book: feedback
>
> Hi,
>
> I'm currently in the process of reading "Better builds with Maven" and
> to be honnest... I'm quite disappointed. I found "Maven Developer's
> notebook" for Maven 1 excellent, and I said it a few times on this
> list. It's even one of the books I used the most often for some time.
> And when Vincent Massol announced at JavaPolis in last december that a
> free Maven2 book was on its way, I was very excited, because I dreamt
> of such a good book combined with all the marvels of Maven2 that he
> demonstrated.
>
> When I started reading "Better Builds with Maven" for the first time,
> just after it was released, I was quickly annoyed by the number of
> errors and the inconsistence of sample source code with what was
> reproduced in the book. So I waited for the updated version with
> corrected errata and I'm reading it right now... and I'm somewhat
> disappointed because it puzzles me more than anything.
>
> It starts off with a very basic introduction to what is Maven, how it
> was designed... and suddenly, it jumps straight up to web services and
> very elaborated samples that have nothing to do with a progressive and
> pragmatic approach. Even worse: samples are full of noise concerning
> exotic plugins and their configuration and the structure is very...
> weird.
>
> I'm not into free criticism, but I think feedback is important, even
> when it's negative. And based on that, I would like to know if there
> is a Maven2 Developer's Notebook in the pipeline, something more
> pragmatic, something simpler, something that would give justice to the
> beauty of Maven2. Because I'm afraid this one could frighten new users
> more than encourage them to abandon their old Ant scripts. Because I
> would even be ready to pay a few tens of bucks just to get the same
> experience I had with the first O'Reilly volume. And because
> obviously, I miss a lot of knowledge to write it myself.
>
> Once again, don't take me wrong: this is not free criticism, this is
> just my humble yet negative feedback as a user who's been using Maven1
> for about a year and a half on personal and professional projects, and
> who's looking for an efficient and comprehensive reference book to
> migrate to Maven 2 and understand its changes pragmatically and
> progressively.
>
> --
> Sébastien Arbogast
>
> http://www.sebastien-arbogast.com
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@maven.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@maven.apache.org
___________________________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Mail réinvente le mail ! Découvrez le nouveau Yahoo! Mail et son interface révolutionnaire.
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