Managing components / projects / dev cycle: Maven or ant?
A year ago we started working with Spring, meanwhile we managed to have clearer modules then without Spring .. so thanks for that ;) But where are having the following problem:
With more components (each components is an eclipse project) is seems getting harder to have a good build cycle, therefore I'm asking you some advice on how to organize your componenst / projects within i.e. eclipse. Is it for example a good idee to have a 1 on 1 mapping between a reusable component and an eclipse project .. or is that to much overhead.
The other thing I'm finding confusing is the role of ant or maven is this picture. We definitly need a good building process and nightly builds. I take a glimb at Maven2... it seemed the thing I need together with continium. But I'm veryyy confused on the fact if we still need ant or not if we use maven? That's not clear to me.. some advice would be great ;)
Perhaps the pro's / con's on using ant or maven to manage your project?
It would be great if someone could share how he is using Spring / Components / Projects / continius builds / development cycle in a large project where these components are reused by several projects.
So... get me out of the dark here :)
Grtz
M.
Loading all the Spring context / property files
Actually, I find the 'strict' project structure more efficient then that every project has it own set of rules, but that offcoarse my 5 cent ... now back to the real question: how to develop Spring modules that can be reused!
For example, i have the following modules and each module is an Eclipse Java project
* Module1 (JAR)
- java files
- Spring context files
- Property place holder files
- ...
* Module2 (WAR)
- java files
- web files
- Spring context and servlet files
- Property place holder files
- ...
* Application1 (depends Module1 and Module2)
- java files
- web files
- Spring context and servlet files
- Property place holder files
* Application2 (depends Module1)
- ...
So what I would like is that module1 and 2 can be deployed independently on the server so taht they can be used by Application1 and 2.
But what I don't see able to solve is that I need to defien which Spring context and property files I need to use to start up my application. The property file problem I can solve I think, but I don't see a good solution on how my Application1 knows which context files it needs to include. Yes I can document this somewhere, but It would be nicer that I just have a dependency on Module1 and that I include all its context files automatically. I have no idea how you guys manage multiple modules on a clear way zo that not every developer needs to kwon which context files he needs to include to get the application started up?
Some input here would be great ;)