Maven vs. Ant features

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Sun, 09/14/2003 - 11:15 — Christoph C. Cemper

Apache Maven Simplifies the Java Build Process... Even More Than Ant proposes this DevX article that explains some issues about the Project Object Model (POM) and cross project reuse / cross developer reuse and some of the more advanced logic/expression/scripting features included… also there's a great feature comparison chart hidden after a java-script popup i would like to replicate here…

Concept	Maven	Ant
Invokable grouping of build tasks	Goal	Target
Project meta-data file (POM)	`<b>project.xml</b>`	–
Goal/Target definition file (project-specific)	`<b>maven.xml</b>`	`<b>build.xml</b>`
Goal definition file (cross-project)	`<b>maven.xml</b>`	–
Goal/Target creation language	Jelly Script, which includes Ant tasks and JSTL-like tags	Ant tasks
Conditional logic and looping support	Jelly has built-in tags based on JSTL	Indirectly, through Script Task or a custom Task
Cross-project Goal/Target reuse	Yes	No
Cross-project Task reuse	Yes	Yes
Expression support	Superset of JSP EL	Basic property access
Goals prerequisites	`prerequisite` attribute of `goal` tag	`depends`* attribute of `target` tag
Goal/Target extensibility	`<preGoal>` and `<postGoal>`	–

Don't confuse Maven's dependency concept with Ant's depends concept. They are different. The Maven term dependency refers to a project's runtime dependencies (jar files, etc.). Ant's term depends refers to a target-prerequisite.

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Sun, 09/14/2003 - 17:36 — dion (not verified)