Build Automation #7 - Mavenizing your project - part 1
The key advantage as you might have seen from Ruby on Rails and Capistrano is the standard being enforced by the framework. For example in Rails you want to create a HelloWorld web application, the first step in creating the entire project structure is to just issue the below command in the shell prompt.
c:\>rails HelloWorld
Rails creates a complete project structure in MVC architecture style and with all the necessary configuration file templates. You just have to start coding and every developer is forced to follow that structure and place their code in appropriate layer (Model, View or Controller). On one side it might look like the framework is in control and you are not, but look at it this way. If the structure that the framework provides, by default confirms to the industry standard architecture model and enforces best practices by default then why worry about being in control?
Now on the Java/J2EE world this has been missing and usually it is a chaos when multiple developers follow their own structure and packaging conventions. While this is difficult to monitor and manage, it can be streamlined and enforced from the beginning with the help of a tool like Maven. Lets look at how to mavenize your project in the coming posts.
