Maven: A Developer's Notebook: A Developer's Notebook

by Vincent Massol and Timothy O'Brien

Maven is a new project management and comprehension tool which provides an elegant way to share build logic across projects. In terms of capabilities, Maven is an improvement to Apache Ant-thanks to... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0596007507
• ISBN13: 9780596007508
• Release Date: July 2005
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 7.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Fast start, gets right to the point.

This is a great book to get a quick introduction to Maven. At about 185 pages, it gets right to the point. It's written using labs and each new one builds on the previous one. I have used Ant and know how it works but was in the dark when it came to Maven. This book gave me the knowledge I needed to understand and modify an existing Maven project within the first two chapters. It's not a reference manual, and it's not one of these 500 page tomes that weighs a ton but is light on substance. There's real content in a very readable format in this book. If you are new to Maven and are scratching your head tryiing to figure out what the heck this thing is doing, read this book and you will be enlightened!

Very useful book

Maven is not an easy-to-use software. It took one year to me to completely understand it. But once mastered, Maven is very useful. If I had read this book one year ago, I would have saved much time. All is explained in it, from the build of an artefact (Jar, War, etc…) to the development of a new Maven plugin. I even learned some tips in spite of my one year use. To resume, this book is essential for people who want to use Maven without spending too much time to learn it. The only thing I can reproach is the absence of how builds an EJB or an EAR.

The Maven Advantage

The Maven framework enables project teams to organize, configure, and collaborate effectively. "A developer's Notebook" is an excellent resource to understand multiple perspecitves of Maven. Along with insights on how to develop and organize projects using Maven, the book skillfully discusses the current status of the Maven project(Maven 1 and Maven 2), Key differences and relationships beetween Ant and Maven(yes, they do not compete but collaborate), the short and longterm benefits of using Maven, details on how over 30 plugins tie together with Maven(such as Cruisecontrol, XDoc, Multiproject, Checkstyle, Findbugs, File-Activity, Site, Test, Artifact, Developer-Activity, Clover, and many more). And there-in lies the power of Maven. The ability to bind multiple plug-ins to create a comprehensive, repeatable, and reusable team and project collaboration environment. What I really enjoyed in reading this book, is the writing style and the format of the book. It is precise, yet insightful. The authors openly discuss things that should and should not be done to use the benefits of Maven. Multiple cases elaborate how to perform and extend goals with Maven. If you are looking for a practical guide to get upto speed or excel in Maven projects, this is a must read.

good on strengths, but key holes

"Maven - A Developer's Notebook" is good for covering the surface of how to do a build in Maven. There is great explanation on the installation of Maven and building Java projects. Coverage of reporting and writing plugins was also good. Coverage of building WARs was fair. It would have been nice to see a JSP or resource files in the example, rather than just code. Noticeably absent was how to build an EJB project and an EAR. And while the book demonstrates connecting to CVS/Subversion, it could use an example on checking out code. The book assumes some knowledge of the build process in Java, but not too much. Specifically, it is not necessary to know Ant. For those who do use Ant, common pitfalls are mentioned (without saying they are from Ant.) In developer's notebook style, the book reads quickly and goes through a series of labs. The authors are good about explaining what things mean and going through the build output. The list of Maven plugins is very useful in finding out what exists. The book is well thought out, clear and excellent for what it covers. However, I think they tried to cover too much in too little room and wound up having to leave out some key areas. If you were only creating jars or WARs by yourself, I would give this book a 5. But for J2EE and teams, it gets a 4 because it needs the documentation to supplement.

Properly paced introduction to Maven

Unlike the other books in the Developer's Notebook series this book seems to be properly paced to introduce the whole topic without being overwhelming. The writing is solid and the coverage is thorough. Graphics are also used effectively to illustrate what's often a very complex logic flow in Maven. Definitely a book worth reading for programmers using Maven.