Maven Based Deployments

For the last few weeks I've been working part time on a small project using Apache Maven as its build tool and this time round I'm finding Maven doesn't suck as much I thought the first time I encountered it. Sure this is a small project, but Maven shines in making, and keeping simple things simple.

Take for example automated deployments for a dev server - something the Rails/Django folk often tout as being one of their big advantages, and something I've often had issues with under other projects. Using the maven jetty plugin I'm finding I get pretty much the same functionality (update from Subversion, build, deploy, use):

[amrk@stumpy nceatracker]$ svn update ; mvn jetty:run
U  src/main/java/com/nceatracker/components/progressbar/ProgressBar.css
U  src/main/java/com/nceatracker/components/progressbar/ProgressBar.html
U  src/main/java/com/nceatracker/core/ServiceLayerImpl.java
A  src/main/java/com/nceatracker/core/InvalidUserException.java
U  src/main/java/com/nceatracker/core/ServiceLayer.java
U  src/main/java/com/nceatracker/pages/LoginPage.java
U  src/main/java/com/nceatracker/pages/ViewSubjectPage.html
U  src/main/java/com/nceatracker/pages/ViewSubjectPage.java
Updated to revision 38.
Listening for transport dt_socket at address: 5005
[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO] Searching repository for plugin with prefix: 'jetty'.
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Building nceatracker
[INFO]    task-segment: [jetty:run]
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Preparing jetty:run
[INFO] [resources:resources]
[INFO] Using default encoding to copy filtered resources.
[INFO] [compiler:compile]
Compiling 5 source files to /home/amrk/code/nceatracker/target/classes
[INFO] [resources:testResources]
[INFO] Using default encoding to copy filtered resources.
[INFO] [compiler:testCompile]
[INFO] Nothing to compile - all classes are up to date
[INFO] [jetty:run]
[INFO] Configuring Jetty for project: nceatracker

I'm currently running this from a screen session, and when I want to update the system to the latest code I can just CTRL-C it, once I add in my database migration framework I'll be all set for that next release.

It may not be as instantaneous or 'live' as you can get with the dynamic platforms, but is sure is bringing us Java folk one step closer. Going another step it's easy to get Jetty monitor the application every N seconds for changes and automatically redeploy, so all I then need is a subversion commit hook to update, and build the checked out version.

Maven continues to have its warts, but Maven also continues to bring builds to that next level of goodness.

tags: java  maven  deployment  

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