Overview

Most people have heard of Ant, the flagship build product for Java applications. Fewer people have heard of Maven, an integrated build environment that sits on top of Jelly (scripting language), Ant and several other key components.

This guide covers the in and outs of using Maven from the perspective of an existing Ant user.

Each section covers a different aspect of the environment and relates it back to Ant, how each environment differs, and where each excels.

While there is a strong slant towards Maven, this is NOT a guide designed to bash Ant, a remarkable and fine product. This guide IS for helping an Ant user understand the remarkable and powerful capabilities within Maven.

Sections

Practical

A common question that comes up is how to do certain things in Maven that are quite trivial in Ant. These answers represent the best-of-breed solutions to problems, and if you have a better solution, let the maintainer know.