Why Maven is Hard?

It is interesting why maven is so hard to understand? Why it
is not well
documented? (It is all my own opinions)
I haven't so much probmlems with Ant, for example. 



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What documentation did you read? There are two very good
books about 
maven 2 (and they are free to download)

1. Maven the Definitive Guide (http://www.sonatype.com
/book/)
2. Better Builds with Maven 
(http://www.devzuz.com/web/guest/products/resources#BBWM)

Sometimes, the documentation for some of the plugins is hard
to 
understand. But mostly, this are third party plugins, so the
Maven team 
can't do anything about it. You will have to mail the team
of the plugin.

Hth,

Nick Stolwijk

Denis Bessmertniy wrote:
> It is interesting why maven is so hard to understand?
Why it is not well
> documented? (It is all my own opinions)
> I haven't so much probmlems with Ant, for example. 
>
>
>
>
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>
>   


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I haven't read (1), but I definitely recommend (2).
Very good indeed.

Yours,
Rodrigo

On 9/24/07, Nick Stolwijk <nick_stolwijkplanet.nl> wrote:
>
> What documentation did you read? There are two very
good books about
> maven 2 (and they are free to download)
>
> 1. Maven the Definitive Guide (http://www.sonatype.com
/book/)
> 2. Better Builds with Maven
> (http://www.devzuz.com/web/guest/products/resources#BBWM)
>
> Sometimes, the documentation for some of the plugins is
hard to
> understand. But mostly, this are third party plugins,
so the Maven team
> can't do anything about it. You will have to mail the
team of the plugin.
>
> Hth,
>
> Nick Stolwijk
>
> Denis Bessmertniy wrote:
> > It is interesting why maven is so hard to
understand? Why it is not well
> > documented? (It is all my own opinions)
> > I haven't so much probmlems with Ant, for
example.
> >
> >
> >
> >
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> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
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Hi Denis,

Denis Bessmertniy wrote on Monday, September 24, 2007 10:07
AM:

> It is interesting why maven is so hard to understand?
Why it is not
> well documented? (It is all my own opinions)
> I haven't so much probmlems with Ant, for example.

Regading the EJBs there are quite a lot examples available.
See, the strength of Maven is that it *enforces* some kind
of project layout and best practices. When you start to do
things in other ways, it will not help you (although you
*can* do differently if you really really want). With Ant
every project establishes its own layout and best practices
and new team members will always have to take a very close
look. And this is different with Maven, it works always the
same way over the complete lifecycle (well, most of the
time).

- Jörg

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Denis Bessmertniy wrote:

> It is interesting why maven is so hard to understand?
Why it is not well
> documented? (It is all my own opinions)
> I haven't so much probmlems with Ant, for example. 

I am in the process of doing a handover of a fully mavenised
build (all 
the way through to using the release plugin for releases) to
someone who 
has only ever used ant before, and this process has
highlighted that 
maven IS hard for a beginner to understand.

Maven's first problem is that it is not described anywhere
neatly in one 
single paragraph. To a maven beginner, "project
comprehension tool" is 
entirely meaningless: Why do I need a tool to help me
"comprehend" my 
project? It makes no sense to a beginner.

I have tried to explain maven by calling it an
"extensible Swiss Army 
Knife": Rather than telling ant how to do every step of
your build, 
maven already knows how to do every step of your build. You
just add the 
missing bits of information like your project name and
version number, 
and maven does the rest automatically.

Another thing a beginner gets confused about is the
bewildering volume 
of plugins. To cut through this confusion I grouped plugins
into the 
basic core group of plugins, and all the other plugins after
people ran 
with the idea and went bananas. Getting across to the user
that they 
don't have to learn to use every plugin, but only the ones
they need, is 
very reassuring for a new user.

Something else new users get worried about is "what
happens if maven 
cannot do what I want maven to do", and here pointing
out "if all else 
fails" strategies like using the antrun plugin to get
ant to do stuff 
for you is very reassuring to the new user. The new user
doesn't need to 
know how the antrun plugin works, they only need to know
that it is there.

Regards,
Graham
--

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Yes, Maven is hard. I should agree, there is why:


New and buggy:
Maven is hard, because it is new and like all new stuffs,
it's buggy.
Working around those little bugs or waiting for one good
soul to provide a
patch is a pain... Expertise on Maven is also harder to
find.

Black Box:
Maven is hard, because for most people , it is a black box.
Like with all
black boxes, it's wonderful when it does what you want, and
it is the worst
nightmare when it doesn't. Ant scripts are indeed much more
easy to
accommodate. The true question is: "why is Maven not
doing what I want" ?
And the true answer to this is: Because what I want to do is
probably not
correct..."


-Toni





Denis Bessmertniy wrote:
> 
> It is interesting why maven is so hard to understand?
Why it is not well
> documented? (It is all my own opinions)
> I haven't so much probmlems with Ant, for example. 
> 
> 
> 
>
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> 
> 

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View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Why-Maven-is-Hard--tf
4507688s177.html#a12856941
Sent from the Maven - Users mailing list archive at
Nabble.com.


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So you are saying that Maven IS hard because someone doesn't
understand a
huge project that they've never used before?  You are saying
that if it was
done in ant it would be easier to understand?  I find that
extremely hard to
believe.

I've read plenty of articles written that I thought
explained nicely what
Maven 2 is.  If there is no good paragraph on the Maven
website about what
it is, then why would someone have started using it if they
didn't know?

If people are going nuts installing every plugin on the
planet and then
wondering why they can't understand Maven, then I have no
pity for them.
You don't start off programming by trying to do something
complicated.
Anyone that does that is asking for trouble, and can't blame
that on the
tool.  Tools are tools, they can be misused and abused. 
With anything,
someone has to have realistic expectations and expect to
learn rather than
just be productive instantly.  I got started with Maven by
simply building a
jar, then a webapp (all documented on their site) and then
added stuff to it
as I needed.  I've never had a problem and never felt lost
to the point of
frustration.

On 9/24/07, Graham Leggett <minfrinsharp.fm> wrote:
>
> Denis Bessmertniy wrote:
>
> > It is interesting why maven is so hard to
understand? Why it is not well
> > documented? (It is all my own opinions)
> > I haven't so much probmlems with Ant, for
example.
>
> I am in the process of doing a handover of a fully
mavenised build (all
> the way through to using the release plugin for
releases) to someone who
> has only ever used ant before, and this process has
highlighted that
> maven IS hard for a beginner to understand.
>
> Maven's first problem is that it is not described
anywhere neatly in one
> single paragraph. To a maven beginner, "project
comprehension tool" is
> entirely meaningless: Why do I need a tool to help me
"comprehend" my
> project? It makes no sense to a beginner.
>
> I have tried to explain maven by calling it an
"extensible Swiss Army
> Knife": Rather than telling ant how to do every
step of your build,
> maven already knows how to do every step of your build.
You just add the
> missing bits of information like your project name and
version number,
> and maven does the rest automatically.
>
> Another thing a beginner gets confused about is the
bewildering volume
> of plugins. To cut through this confusion I grouped
plugins into the
> basic core group of plugins, and all the other plugins
after people ran
> with the idea and went bananas. Getting across to the
user that they
> don't have to learn to use every plugin, but only the
ones they need, is
> very reassuring for a new user.
>
> Something else new users get worried about is
"what happens if maven
> cannot do what I want maven to do", and here
pointing out "if all else
> fails" strategies like using the antrun plugin to
get ant to do stuff
> for you is very reassuring to the new user. The new
user doesn't need to
> know how the antrun plugin works, they only need to
know that it is there.
>
> Regards,
> Graham
> --
>
>
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>
>

Ryan Moquin wrote:

> So you are saying that Maven IS hard because someone
doesn't understand a
> huge project that they've never used before?

Yes.

> You are saying that if it was
> done in ant it would be easier to understand?

Absolutely not. What on earth gave you that idea?

Regards,
Graham
--

Denis Bessmertniy wrote:
> It is interesting why maven is so hard to understand?
Why it is not well
> documented? (It is all my own opinions)
> I haven't so much probmlems with Ant, for example. 

Thanks to everybody for your input on this thread this far.
I will try 
to sum up your thoughts later on and start separate threads
regarding 
different ways that we can improve the situation.

-- 
Dennis Lundberg

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I know when I started with Maven in the 2.0 beta days, there
really
wasn't much documentation at all. The situation today is
vastly
different. I will admit that the organization of the site
isn't great
and honestly I just go to the index and pull the doc I need.
(Yes even
PMC members can't remember everything all the time). I've
put thought
into how it could be better organized, but haven't come up
with a great
solution.

Maven is big and complex and I think reading some of the
first chapters
of either book mentioned in this chapter really is needed to
get a good
foundation.

One thing that comes to mind here that is missing is
"How to find what
you're looking for". Something to say, this is where
the settings info
is, here's the pom stuff, here's how to understand the
plugin docs etc.
I will try to find some time to put this together.

The best way to get things clarified in the docs is to write
a jira and
submit a patch. Sometimes the more you use a system, the
less obvious
the lacking parts of the docs become, this is where we
really need user
(especially new ones) help to figure that out.

I think it might also be helpful to add one of those google
"search this
site" things to the page.

-----Original Message-----
From: Dennis Lundberg [mailto:dennislapache.org] 
Sent: Monday, September 24, 2007 5:06 PM
To: Maven Users List
Subject: Re: Why Maven is Hard?

Denis Bessmertniy wrote:
> It is interesting why maven is so hard to understand?
Why it is not
well
> documented? (It is all my own opinions)
> I haven't so much probmlems with Ant, for example. 

Thanks to everybody for your input on this thread this far.
I will try 
to sum up your thoughts later on and start separate threads
regarding 
different ways that we can improve the situation.

-- 
Dennis Lundberg

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