Hi Tim,
Sorry to jump into the middle of the conversation, but this
thread is addressing one of my questions exactly. I am a total newb here, but Katrina Owen (who is a very active member) said this was THE place to find great help with Java, so here I am.
Is what you are saying true?
I used Maven1 about 15 years ago and was impressed with the approach. That was about the last time I wrote any appreciable Java code as well (been doing Smalltalk, C++, C#/VB.NET, PHP, Perl, and a bit of Python since then). Now I find myself in an architect role at a Java-shop, successfully recommending that we move away from Ant and toward Maven, which I am very excited about. BUT... I am having a hell of a time knitting the pieces together.
I have a very simple existing project called "library," which is exactly what it sounds like - a collection of classes defining commonly used functionality. It has no inter-project dependencies, but relies on several 3rd-party JARs (like dnsjava, commons-lang, jmagick, etc.). I have been trying to figure out (by scouring a dozen solid Maven-related websites, the O'Reilly "Maven - The Definitive Guide" and "Maven - A Developer's Journal" books) how to add these JARs as dependencies.
Am I just missing the point of a dependency from Maven's POV? Are these just resources? If so, how do we use Maven to manage them when new versions come out? For instance, the Maven Repository has dnsjava in it, but only up to 2.0.1, and we are using the 2.0.2 JAR.
Any illumination you or anyone else can shed on this would be tremendously helpful.
Thanks, and apologies if I stepped on any forum posting protocols here.
Chris