CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaeclipsemavenprojectproject-structure
Eddy
Eddy

Reputation: 3703

Is there any reason to use Maven project instead of Eclipse one?

I have a project written entirely in Java, and using several external Java libraries (Hibernate, a couple of Apache Commons, MQ, pretty standard stuff).

I've been working with Eclipse, but this project, which I'm inheriting from a group of developers, no longer in the company and it is using Maven.

I have no idea why did they use Maven in the first place (they're not available for sharing this knowledge with me). The project is medium size, and nothing, the company is doing, is too complex.

Now, my question is:

ls there any reason for me to keep Maven?

Reading around, I can't find any real reason for doing so, and I'm especially unhappy about the directory structure, which requires me to go down 3 levels to get to the actual Java package, and Java code.

(What I would like to do is simply move everything to Eclipse, using the Eclipse structure. It's a matter of 1-2 days of work to get it running, so no big loss of time, and from my point of view right now, it will make my life simpler moving forward, and allow me to do a better job for the company that hires me).

Upvotes: 0

Views: 13385

Answers (4)

Roman C
Roman C

Reputation: 1

Maven is a powerful, extendable, open source project builder. The configuration is contained in the XML files, so it's easily accessible by the any text editor. If you want to share the configuration what you will do is just post the pom.xml. Many IDEs have converters of the project configuration to Eclipse and from Eclipse but this configuration is local and used internally by the development environment. Developers even not save such configuration in the VCS. Checking out such configuration has no sense. But maven is independent because it relies on external repositories that keep track of every library and version used by the project. Many IDEs including Eclipse have Maven support via plugins. That can keep intact both configurations.

Upvotes: 3

ATOzTOA
ATOzTOA

Reputation: 35950

You should keep the Maven in place, if you want to use Eclipse, you can do that, and still have Maven fully functional. You can have any folder structure you want in Maven, just need to specify the paths in the pom file.

Upvotes: 0

Dave Newton
Dave Newton

Reputation: 160191

Yes: managing transitive dependencies by hand is a fool's errand, and it has a ton of other functionality that is also complicated to do manually.

Relying solely on an IDE's build process is, in general, a Bad Idea. Not everybody uses the same IDE, or version of an IDE, or an IDE at all. Along with the latter, CI systems are headless and rely on build files.

Use an Eclipse-Maven plugin like m2eclipse or similar.

Upvotes: 6

Sachin
Sachin

Reputation: 3554

Using maven you don't have to care about importing jars in project as it is mentioned in pom file. Also those jar will be downloaded from maven repository if they are needed(It should present on maven repository). It will also help you to make a all jars in one go(Need to configure only once) :)

Upvotes: 3

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