Raible Designs

Maven makes it easy

If I ever migrate a project to Maven, I should probably read this article first. It's interesting to note that Maven makes it easy for project management, but not necessarily (??) for building. I know, you'll fire back that it makes it easy to build too - but if you don't have a need to manage your project, maybe you don't have a need for Maven. I find it strange that Maven is a top-level Apache project, and it hasn't even released version 1.0 yet.

Abstract: Even though Ant acts as the de facto standard for building Java programs, in many ways the tool falls short for project management tasks. In contrast, Maven, a high-level project management tool from the Apache Jakarta project, provides everything that Ant offers plus more. Java developer Charles Chan introduces Maven's features and walks you through a complete Maven project setup. [source]

[ANNOUNCE] Struts Resume and AppFuse 0.7 Released!

There's nothing like tootin' your own horn. What's even worse is checking all this stuff into CVS and then uploading it on a dial-up connection. Anyway, here it is - the latest and greatest version of struts-resume and (finally) a version of appfuse. AppFuse is basically struts-resume w/o any resume stuff. There's not much new that's visible for struts-resume, the only real things are User Administration (no add, just list/delete/assign roles) and a smart-menu that stays expanded based on your previous selections. Here is a full list of what's new in 0.7 (both apps):

Features in 0.7
===============
- Upgraded to Hibernate 2.0 Beta 4.
- Upgraded to Struts 1.1 nightly build (2003.03.26) to fix Validator issue.
(http://tinyurl.com/87xa)
- Upgraded DBUnit to 1.6-dev to fix batchStatement error in Ant task.
(http://tinyurl.com/8ei2)
- Upgraded Canoo WebTest from build265 to build276.
- Upgraded XDoclet to nightly build (2003.03.28) for Hibernate 2.0
compatibility. Apache module is still customized for POJO -> ActionForms.
- Upgraded Display Tag Library to version 0.8.5.
- Renamed "test-canoo" task to "test-jsp".
- Added "db-load" as a dependency to running unit tests to get a fresh
database each time.
- In LoginServlet.java and BreadCrumbFilter.java, pre-pended contextPath
to authURL (i.e. "j_security_check") to get absolute path.
- Added User Administrator to list/edit/delete users. This feature
includes using indexedProperties on a form - still using XDoclet, but using
a subclass of UserForm, called UserFormEx to hold the getter/setters for
the indexedProperties.
- Wrote more Cactus and Canoo Tests to verify Resume editing and User
Administration functioned properly.
- Added icons to success and error messages template (common/messages.jsp).
- Implemented role-based Permissions on menu by adding
permissions="rolesAdapter" to in menu.jsp.

I've put a line through the renaming of "test-canoo" to "test-jsp" because it's in the README (part of the download) and I don't want to re-upload just because of one stinkin' line.

Tomorrow, I'm actually presenting for the Struts Training class, so I won't be able to give a full review. One of the gents who wrote Stxx will be presenting first at 8:30 MST, and then I'm up for my preso. I'm going to do some short and sweet stuff on Remember Me and XDoclet with Struts. If you're interested, you can do the labs I put together. I'll post the slides when I'm done presenting.

Taglibs Standard 1.0.3 Released

I've just noticed that a new version (1.0.3) of the JSTL reference implementation has been released containing some minor bug fixes. [Simon Brown]

Hmmm, no release notes eh? Makes you wonder if it's worth the upgrade/headache. I'll be in for it for quite some time with my struts-resume project. I'm using 17 different OSS packages - it'll be a maintenance nightmare to keep up. That is, until I break down and do some Maven integration.

Use Maven? Experience says no...

I've been wanting to upgrade struts-resume to use Maven, but after reading Patrick's post, I might just change my mind.

And after 2 years of using Ant, Maven (which uses Jelly and Werkz as the underlying engines) behaves differently enough from Ant to utterly frustrate me. So I'm back heading back to the drawing board for new ideas.

Of course, my hope is to integrate Maven without losing Ant and let them both live beside each other intimately. Someday it will be done...

[ANNOUNCE] Hibernate 1.2.3 Released!

Apparently the Hibernate folks don't advertise releases to the mailing lists, cause I never knew about this release (happened yesterday) - until I read Erik's blog today. Anyway, there's nothing new to this release, mostly bugfixes. I'll still be updating my projects that use Hibernate, as it's much easier to upgrade often than to try to migrate b/w releases. I've discovered this the hard way with XDoclet and Roller.

Trying to keep up with all these projects, and my affinity for nightly builds begs for me to implement Maven ASAP. I keep checking in JARS to CVS and removing them a week later!

Enhancing the build process with CruiseControl and Maven

Now that we've passed the first milestone on my project, we're getting into "What's Next." I'm going to propose that we use Maven and CruiseControl to create a tighter continuous integration and testing process. I hope to continue to use our current Ant build.xml, just re-arrange some jars and such for Maven. Think it'll work? I'd love to hear any experiences or helpful hints with either of these tools. I have a start on Maven, and I think I'll be fine getting started with it, but I've never used CruiseControl. Luckily, I have Java Development with Ant on my desk to help me out.

Struts Resume @ Sourceforge.net

I'm in the midst of checking in my struts-resume app to the struts-apps project at sourceforge.net. I hate to admit it, but I'm doing it the ugly way. I have a ~12MB lib directory that contains all the 3rd party jars used in this application. Ugh, I wish I was using Maven now. I figure you gotta start somewhere though - so I might as well get it all in there and clean it all up later.

Subversion - CVS Replacement?

I heard of Subversion this morning from Erik Hatcher's publisher. It looks to be a CVS replacement, but as I'm happy with CVS (and satisfied that I've learned it), I don't think I'll be using it any time soon. It comes from the folks at Tigris.org, who have also provided us with Scarab. I am using Scarab, or I've at least installed it at work and intend to use it on our project. Scarab is a bug tracking application that is cheaper than JIRA and supposedly better than Bugzilla. I wish I could use JIRA b/c I really like the product, but as with most things - clients just want you to do something with free tools, rather than shelling out some extra cash to get things like IDEA and JIRA.

BTW, I'm sure you've heard that IDEA is on sale now. Will I buy it? Nope, I'm in love with Eclipse. Would I buy it if I'd used it for more than 2 days? Probably, but everything is working as I like it in Eclipse, and I'm such an IDE-minimalist, it just makes no sense.

You might be wondering why I was speaking with Erik Hatcher's publisher this morning? Heck if I know?! He sent me an e-mail saying that Erik had recommended me as a source for the newest and coolest Java Tools. Thanks Erik - but I don't know that I'm much of a source. I told him I thought that Maven, XDoclet and Hibernate would probably get a lot of attention in the coming months. He was interested in seeing if they deserved books. I don't think XDoclet does, as it's got so many different modules, it would be difficult to cover them all. It would be VERY cool to see a book written that develops an application using these tools.

This is why Erik's book is popular - people can take stuff from it and learn. Sure, they learn initially by copy/paste, but it's still learning. Hibernate probably deserves a book as I can't seem to grok it - although I did delete approx. 100 lines of code today after I learned some good tricks. I don't know if Erik's publisher was serious, but he did ask me if I'd be interested in writing a book. I told him "thanks, but no thanks" - Julie has asked that I never write a book again. I can't blame her, it's too much stress and computer time in my opinion. Especially considering that I killed my weekly Virus Scan (Friday nights) for the 10th time since I'm working (again) on a Friday night. It hasn't run in over two months!

I'd definitely like to speak about this stuff, maybe at conferences or such. Of course, I'd have to learn a helluva lot more before I could make that happen.

Using Both Ant and Maven

Erik Hatcher makes a request to get his JavaDevWithAnt project converted from using Ant to Maven:

Ok, a challenge to the Maven or Centipede experts tuning into my blog: make my JavaDevWithAnt project build with either. But the trick is that it has to be simpler than the current Ant build.xml. Believe it or not, I've not (seriously) used either of these tools. I hear the buzz about these and want to become a "believer".

I'm all for this as I've created my AppFuse project using his directory structure/build file as a template. I did go down this path to Mavenism already, but gave up before I finished. My problem is I have 15 different 3rd party JARs I use in my project - many testing frameworks and jakarta stuff. And a lot of these are nightly (or personal) builds because there's been some bug fixed, or enhancement added. What I really want is to continue using Ant b/c I think it rocks and it gives me more control over little tasks, but also to use Maven to generate a project site.

The problem with Erik's request is that I'm guessing no one will jump at the opportunity. Maybe, but in reality, no one looks at each others code unless there's a bug, or they need a sample to get started. Too bad - we could really do wonders for the Java Community if we started reviewing each others code. Erik, maybe you could post little snippets of your build file, and we could convert small parts of it. By posting a measly 10 lines, some other coders might be so inclined to help mavenize it. I know this is not how Maven works, but it sure would be nice if using Maven didn't require abandoning Ant.

Tonight I'll be staying up late trying to finish up AppFuse and Struts-Resume. Since the security-example download seems to be getting a lot of traffic (and it's a 15MB download), I should probably try to get these projects into SourceForge and save myself some bandwidth. Who knows if I'll get it done, I'm pretty tired, and it's already 10:00. But what choice do I have - Saturdays are family days, I promised my client that I pump a bunch of new features out on Sunday, and I get to work an 80 hour-week next week to get our first version out at my new job. Ugh, I need a vacation.

Maven IDE Integration

Project to watch: Maven IDE Integration over at Sourceforge. No files released yet, but hopefully soon. Notice that Eclipse integration is the initial focus - nice!