[ajug-members] Java EE default project layout

[Bill Siggelkow]

Burr,

In my opinion the best thing to do in your situation would be to make  
Ant your common denominator. If you are not ready to swallow the  
Maven2 pill (which I consider a fairly large dose) Ant is the most  
flexible way to go. It will adapt to most any environment and the  
three amigos of IDEs ( [My]Eclipse / Net Beans / IDEA ) provide first- 
class support for running your Ant scripts from within the IDE. The  
nice thing about Ant is it's easy to bolt on new functionality as you  
go. You can get the basics of the compile-package-deploy loop in  
place then add in stuff as needed (like running tests, code  
generation, remote deployment (e.g. via FTP), code coverage, database  
initialization, ad nauseum ...)

A lot of people use the Tomcat-recommended basic build script (http:// 
tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-5.5-doc/appdev/build.xml.txt) as a starting  
point. It's as good as any.

As far as MyEclipse -- I like it -- the Eclipse WTP (Web Tools  
Platform) comes close, but Genuitec is enhancing MyEclipse all the  
time with some nice features. I find it worth the $30 subscription.  
And, you are right, it is a good way to allow newbie developers to  
quickly get up to speed.

-Bill Siggelkow

On Feb 5, 2006, at 12:35 PM, Burr Sutter wrote:

> The fact that every IDE seems to have its own unique way of  
> handling project structure (though I understand Netbeans at least  
> gives you the Ant script needed to build manually) seems to be  
> something that should be addressed.  Ideally my project should be  
> fairly portable between Ant+Command Line, Netbeans and Eclipse.   
> Granted, BEA, Oracle and IBM will add their own special sauce but  
> it would be really nice to have a standard/open source solution to  
> this.
>
> I've often looking at things from the "newbie" standpoint and what  
> should I tell the folks who are fairly new to Java.  At the moment,  
> picking up MyEclipse seems to be the best answer for building basic  
> web applications on an app server from what I can see. Low cost,  
> large marketshare on its own, based on the marketshare leading  
> Eclipse therefore knowlege is transferable to your next position as  
> a developer.
>
> The fact that every new project startup (just after the team  
> members have been screened, interviewed and hired) incurs a 1 to 2  
> week ramp up on things like a standardized build process, folder/ 
> file layout, check-in/out, process/procedures and whatever the  
> basic framework is ( e.g. Struts, Spring+Hibernate, JSF+EJB, etc)  
> just hurts.
>
> Great discussion so far!  Thanks Ron!
>
> Burr
>
>
> On 2/5/06, Ron Cordell <ron.cordell at gmail.com> wrote:
> I inherited a project that was built with Maven 1.0.2, and there  
> were a lot of things to like about it. Everything for the project,  
> documentation, building jars, wars, ears and such can be handled  
> with Maven. But I ripped out Maven and replaced it with Ant. Many  
> people might think that this is a step backwards, and I'd have to  
> agree. But the problem with Maven 1.x was that it takes too long to  
> make changes to it because it's so hard to understand. Most things  
> Maven does is implicit, rather than explicit like Ant. Maven relies  
> completely on plugins, but each plugin has idiosyncrasies that  
> result in slight different behavior from plugin to plugin. The  
> promise of Maven is clear, especially on larger projects where  
> there are many inter-related sub-projects that can be built in  
> tandem. But for a simple to medium level project, I came to the  
> conclusion that it was too expensive to maintain and modify Maven.
>
> Outside Maven, there are components and IDE plugins that also want  
> to dictate project structure. I'm thinking of things like  
> MyEclipseIDE, which wants your project to be set up in a specific  
> way. I haven't looked at recent releases of MyEclipseIDE, but there  
> wasn't any way to map there expected structure to your physical  
> directory layout, much like NetBeans allows you to do with basic  
> java projects. These complicate things quite a bit and reduce the  
> number of options in some ways.
>
> I'm looking foward to reading some of the articles and info people  
> have put forward on this thread as they look quite interesting.
>
> -Ron Cordell
>
>
>
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