Coffeejolts: January 2008 Archives

I said I wouldn't, but I did it anyway. This morning, I built a batch file and a pom to install the NetBeans distribution of Jax-WS into my local maven 2 repository. I based my approach on this post, which detailed the process using a unix shell.

I use Windows at work, so I created a batch file to install the jars and a pom into my local repository. The group ids for each package are the public group prepended with 'local'. To use the library, include the following dependency in your project pom:

<dependency>
       <groupId>local.sun.java.net</groupId>
       <artifactId>jaxws-ri</artifactId>
       <version>2.1</version>
       <type>pom</type>
</dependency>

You can download a zip file containing the jars and the bat file here: jaxws21.zip Just unzip and click install.bat.

I use Maven at my job to handle builds and manage dependencies. Most libraries are available and up to date. All I have to do is add them to my POM and build.

The key word there is most. If a jar is not available on a Maven repository, you can install the jar in question manually to your local repository. This isn't a big deal if it's one jar. When you have multiple jars that are interdependent, things quickly get ugly, and result in a huge dependency list in your project pom.

It could be worse- and today it was. I tried to set up a jax-ws 2.1 project in maven and immediately ran into a third scenario. The jars in the maven repository were incorrect and the respective pom files listing incorrect dependencies. I spent hours sorting through the mess until I finally gave up and used Ant instead. There is no way for me to go in and clean up the mess in the maven repository. I could go in and fix this on my local repository, but why? Isn't managing dependencies the selling point for Maven? If I'm managing all the dependencies myself, what do I need Maven for?

To be fair, the problem is not the Maven team's fault. They don't manage the repository in question. I'll continue to use Maven for most of my projects. When things get ugly, I'll bring out Ant.