Hello, Maven!

[raupachz]

Maven and Java development goes hand in hand. Maven is an essential tool for developing software with Java. If you are new to Java, you will probably encounter Maven very early in your learning path. Programming languages use "Hello, world!" to introduce themselves to a new audience. Build systems (I know Maven can do more) should use the same approach. I would like to suggest an easier way to create new projects from scratch.

This is the current way to create a project with Maven:

mvn archetype:generate -DgroupId=com.mycompany.app -DartifactId=my-app -DarchetypeArtifactId=maven-archetype-quickstart -DarchetypeVersion=1.4 -DinteractiveMode=false

This command is not intuitive and takes quite a few parameters. A beginner with Maven has no idea what all these parameters are. I doubt even an experienced Maven user knows the parameters by heart.

The output after running the command:

[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO] 
[INFO] ------------------< org.apache.maven:standalone-pom >-------------------
[INFO] Building Maven Stub Project (No POM) 1
[INFO] --------------------------------[ pom ]---------------------------------
[INFO] 
[INFO] >>> archetype:3.2.1:generate (default-cli) > generate-sources @ standalone-pom >>>
[INFO] 
[INFO] <<< archetype:3.2.1:generate (default-cli) < generate-sources @ standalone-pom <<<
[INFO] 
[INFO] 
[INFO] --- archetype:3.2.1:generate (default-cli) @ standalone-pom ---
[INFO] Generating project in Batch mode
[INFO] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Using following parameters for creating project from Archetype: maven-archetype-quickstart:1.4
[INFO] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Parameter: groupId, Value: com.mycompany.app
[INFO] Parameter: artifactId, Value: my-app
[INFO] Parameter: version, Value: 1.0-SNAPSHOT
[INFO] Parameter: package, Value: com.mycompany.app
[INFO] Parameter: packageInPathFormat, Value: com/mycompany/app
[INFO] Parameter: package, Value: com.mycompany.app
[INFO] Parameter: groupId, Value: com.mycompany.app
[INFO] Parameter: artifactId, Value: my-app
[INFO] Parameter: version, Value: 1.0-SNAPSHOT
[INFO] Project created from Archetype in dir: /Users/raupach/Development/my-app
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time:  3.745 s
[INFO] Finished at: 2024-05-19T11:27:47+02:00
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Again, new Maven user won't be able to make any sense of this. It is a lot of information to take in. I would argue that the verbosity is more confusing than helpful. For example it says: BUILD SUCCESS. What did it build? All I wanted to do was create a project. Side note: if this is the first time Maven downloads additional dependencies.

My last point: I doubt the project is even usable. It is full of outdated dependencies. JUnit 4.11, Maven Compiler Plugin 3.0.8 and so fourth.

Things to improve on:

• Reduce verbosity
• Fewer input arguments
• Everything included: no need to download additional dependencies
• Up to date Maven plugins and dependencies

Examples from other programming languages / build tools:

Rust and Cargo

cargo new my-app
cd my-app

Node and npm

mkdir my-app
cd my-app
npm init

Go

mkdir my-app
cd my-app
go mod init example/hello

[hendrikebbers]

I was already thinking about a website like https://start.spring.io or https://start.microprofile.io That goes in a similar direction.

[raupachz]

Yes. That would be nice. A good start in the right direction. However I still think that should be part of Maven itself not a webservice.

[khmarbaise]

The spring boot starter itself is an open source project... I did already some tries with it... need more time for that... I could think of start.maven.org ???
Also a more convenient command line application could be also a good enhancement/improvement...

[rmannibucau]

Does it solve any issue except having something fun in demo?
AFAIK IDE already integrate archectypes not that bad and cli is generally as pointless since using any editor is sufficient these days.
So until the starter does handle dependencies - and here we enter into the opiniated side of this kind of solution - I'm not sure it is worth it.

[raupachz]

@rmannibucau Let me explain:

The current process is broken. Maven out of the box doesn't provide an easy, coherent and correct way to start a project. A set of blessed and maintained archetypes might help, but I don't know of any at the moment.

Archetypes add complexity. I am trying to remove complexity.

Maven is a CLI tool. I do a lot of terminal work. I can do everything: source control, building, reporting. The very basic thing I can't do is create a project. I would like to have an easy way to do that.

Yes, the IDE already provides a lot of things. But I don't want to tie my build lifecycle to an IDE. We have been there. Maven was the way out.

Lastly, everyting is opiniated. Maven is an opiniated tool. It came with a standard directory layout for example.

[rmannibucau]

My 2cts are that if IDE are not helping enough then, in CLI, echo does and thzre is no complexity there - archetypes are harder than "vi-ing" a pom IMHO so kot sure how to help there except explaining archetypes are one option only.