Maven is an application or program widely used to assist in making Java projects. Nowadays, everything has been facilitated by the advent of technology.
Not only that which can be felt directly by the community but project developers who work with programming languages such as Java are also helped by technological developments.
One form of this technological development is the Maven application, a tool for developers that is available as open source.
Maven is developed by the Apache Group to build, publish, and deploy projects created by developers.
Further explanation regarding Java Maven information is what will be explained in this article.
What is Maven?
Quoted from the Geeks For Geeks page, Maven is a reasonably powerful project management tool based on the Project Object Model (POM).
In simple terms, Maven is a tool for building and managing projects that use the Java programming language. Maven can make things easier for developers, such as understanding Java-based tasks.
Some of the benefits that you can feel when using this tool are:
- Creating a program can be easier with Maven.
- The information you need, such as documents, reports, and more, can be found easily.
- With Maven, updating the project repository is easier.
- Without scripting, you can build projects and products with the JAR, WAR, and other output types.
- Integrating the projects you are working on also becomes more accessible.
How Does Maven Works?
There are five core things from this Maven concept that you must understand. Here is an overview of the working principles of Maven:
1. POM files
A POM or Project Object Model file is an XML file that contains project-related information with configured information. For example, dependencies, source, plugin, and destination directories.
When you use Maven, you must submit the POM file to the application so that Maven can run commands and read files.
2. Dependencies and Repositories
This is a draft for an external Java library that uses packaged JAR files. Suppose the Maven application does not find the dependency. In that case, it will download it from the Maven repository and place it in your storage.
3. Build a life cycle
The build life cycle consists of a sequence of build phases, and each build phase consists of a series of objectives.
4. Build Profiles
A build profile will allow you to build projects with different configurations. For example, creating a project on the local computer and developing to testing it.
5. Build Plugins
Plugin builds are used to perform a specific purpose. You can add plugins to the POM file. Maven has some standard plugins that you can use, as well as implement them yourself in Java.
That’s a bunch of information about what Maven is. Hopefully, this How To Tekno explanation will add to your knowledge about Maven.
What is Maven: Objective
Maven, also known as Apache Maven, is a build automation tool primarily used for Java-based projects.
Its main objective is to provide developers with a comprehensive, maintainable, reusable, and simple model for managing projects.
Maven’s declarative approach allows developers to manage project dependencies, build and test processes, and project structure in a consistent and organized manner.
Maven also offers a wide range of tools and plugins that can be integrated with the declarative model, allowing developers to automate tasks such as compilation, packaging, testing, and deployment.
Additionally, Maven’s centralized repository system allows developers to easily share and access external dependencies, improving collaboration and streamlining the development process. Overall, Maven’s goal is to make project management more efficient and less error-prone for developers.
What is Maven: Features
Maven is loaded with many valuable and useful features, which goes a long way towards explaining its popularity. Here are some of Maven’s more noteworthy features:
- A huge, continuously growing repository of user libraries
- The ability to set up projects easily, using best practices
- Dependency management, featuring automatic updating
- Backwards compatible with previous versions
- Strong error and integrity reporting
- Automatic parent versioning
- Ensures consistent usage across all projects
- It’s extensible, and you can easily write plug-ins using scripting languages or Java.
What is Maven: Build Tools
Build tools are software programs that assist in the creation of an executable application from source code. They are crucial in automating various tasks involved in the software development process.
There are several processes that build tools are used for:
- Generating source code: Build tools can automatically generate source code, such as Java classes, based on templates and other configurations. This helps to speed up the development process and reduce the chance of errors.
- Generating documentation from the source code: Build tools can also generate documentation, such as JavaDocs, from the source code. This helps developers understand the codebase better and improves the overall maintainability of the project.
- Compiling source code: Build tools can compile the source code into machine-readable code, such as bytecode or machine code. This is a necessary step before the code can be executed.
- Packaging the compiled codes into JAR files: Build tools can package the compiled code into Java Archive (JAR) files, making it easy to distribute and reuse the code.
- Installing the packaged code in the local repository, server, or central repository: Build tools can also deploy the packaged code to a local repository, server, or central repository, making it accessible for other developers and teams.
Overall, build tools help to automate and streamline the software development process, making it more efficient, reliable and less error-prone.
The Need for Maven
Maven is a widely-used build automation tool specifically designed for Java-based projects. One of its main functions is to manage project dependencies, which refers to the libraries or JAR files needed for a project.
Maven helps to automatically download the necessary dependencies, ensuring that the correct versions of libraries are used for each project.
Maven eliminates the need to manually visit the official websites of different software to download dependencies. Instead, developers can easily search for and find libraries in different languages on the mvnrepository website.
Additionally, Maven helps developers to create the appropriate project structure for frameworks such as struts and servlets, which is crucial for the successful execution of a project.
Overall, Maven simplifies the process of managing dependencies and project structure, making it more efficient and less error-prone for developers.