Objectives

Almost every developer uses an IDE, but a build management tool is probably the second most common tool. Maven is the de facto standard build tool in open source software projects and its features can prove to be a great asset for creating stable and reproducible builds on other projects as well. This course introduces you to the basic concepts and terminology, it teaches you how to build simple projects as well as multi-module projects and it briefly discusses how you can extend the build process with your own Maven plugins.

Main topics

• Maven and build management concepts
• Maven terminology: POM, local repository, build lifecycle, plugin, ...
• Comparing Maven to other build tools (Ant, Make, ...)
• Getting started with Maven
• Installing Maven
• First steps with Maven: Creating a simple pom, configuring plugins and adding unit tests
• Working with common Maven plugins
• Basic plugins: surefire, javadoc, site, ...
• Maven archetypes
• Integration with your IDE: Eclipse
• Multi-module builds
• Artifact types: jar, war, pom, bundle, ...
• POM inheritance
• Extending Maven
• Writing and using a new Maven plugin