Book Image

Maven Essentials

By : Russell E Gold, Prabath Siriwardena
5 (1)
Book Image

Maven Essentials

5 (1)
By: Russell E Gold, Prabath Siriwardena

Overview of this book

Maven is the #1 build tool used by developers and it has been around for more than a decade. Maven stands out among other build tools due to its extremely extensible architecture, which is built on of the concept of convention over configuration. It’s widely used by many open source Java projects under Apache Software Foundation, Sourceforge, Google Code, and more. Maven Essentials is a fast-paced guide to show you the key concepts in Maven and build automation. We get started by introducing you to Maven and exploring its core concepts and architecture. Next, you will learn about and write a Project Object Model (POM) while creating your own Maven project. You will also find out how to create custom archetypes and plugins to establish the most common goals in build automation. After this, you’ll get to know how to design the build to prevent any maintenance nightmares, with proper dependency management. We then explore Maven build lifecycles and Maven assemblies. Finally, you will discover how to apply the best practices when designing a build system to improve developer productivity.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
Maven Essentials
Credits
About the Author
Acknowledgments
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Avoid overriding the default directory structure


Maven follows the design philosophy Convention over Configuration. Without any configuration changes, Maven assumes the location of the source code is ${basedir}/src/main/java, the location of tests is ${basedir}/src/test/java, and the resources are available at ${basedir}/src/main/resources. After a successful build, Maven knows where to place the compiled classes (${basedir}/target/classes) and where to copy the final artifact (${basedir}/target/). It is possible to change this directory structure, but it's recommended not to do so. Why?

Keeping the default structure improves the readability of the project. Even a fresh developer knows where to look, if he is familiar with Maven. Also, if you have associated plugins and other Maven extensions with your project, you will be able to use them with minimal changes if you have not altered the default Maven directory structure. Most of these plugins and other extensions assume the Maven convention...