Re: Newbie Help

Idris B Saliu wrote:
> Thanks,
>  I've downloaded the docs and the tutorial, and I've started reading 
> through them. However, I'm having a hard time understanding the build 
> system and have some question concerning maven. Is maven a replacement 
> for ANT ? and if it is, is it possible to use ANT instead of maven. Or 
> have I just totally gotten it all wrong. 

I'm going to explain the relationship between Merlin, Maven and Ant 
relative to Merlin 3.3.0 and then I'm going to explain the scenario 
coming in the next release of Merlin.

Merlin, Maven and Ant - on 3.3.0
--------------------------------

All Merlin sub-systems are built using Maven (and last validated by me 
under Maven 1.0-rc3).  Maven is a build system that provides a notion of 
a project model.  The project model is defined inside a file called 
project.xml.  Under Maven you can introduce additional custom behavior 
using a file named maven.xml which contains build related actions in a 
scripting language called Jelly.  If you look at the tutorials you 
should several examples of project.xml and maven.xml file (although the 
maven.xml file examples are minimal).  To build a project using maven 
you normally execute a command such as :

   $ maven jar:install

Maven does provide support for ant 1.5.3. If you want to see examples of 
usage of ant in maven you will find lots of examples in the Avalon cvs - 
just post a note here and I'll point you to some more relevant examples.


Merlin, Maven and Ant - on 3.4.0 (or whatever the version will be)
------------------------------------------------------------------

Following the release of Merlin 3.3.0 the Avalon team have moved the 
entire codebase from cvs to svn, restructure a bunch of stuff including 
separation of core Avalon for a distinct sub-group of utilities (now 
spun-off into the Excalibur project), and most importantly, we have 
completely re-done our build system.  Maven is no longer used although 
we will be provide the equivalent plugin-support for projects running 
Merlin and building on Maven.  This decision was mainly driven by the 
fact that Maven does not scale well when you get into hundreds of 
projects (mainly due to the absence of centralized version management 
but also due to reliability and stability issues).

Rather than fall back to pure Ant, the Avalon team have put together a 
small antlib (using Ant 1.6.1) that provides centralized version and 
dependency management and from this, enables automation of mainstream 
build requirements and build customization using good old fashion ant 
targets.  The antlib is affectionately know as Magic and based on 
results to-date - its very definitely living up to its name in every 
possible way.

Summation
---------

If you want to skip the Maven experience then move strait to the svn 
version of Avalon (but you will be dealing with a unreleased version of 
Merlin).  There are still some things to be completed transition - in 
particular items that effect the command-line scripts for the unix 
platform but with luck this should be resolved shortly.  On the 
other-hand, if you planning on using Merlin as a product platform and 
you have a deadline, you may want to stay with 3.3.0. It kind of depends 
on your own context.

Hope that helps - and a warm welcome to Avalon!

Cheers, Stephen.


> I've read about different 
> stages/life cycles and I think I have good understanding of that, it 
> just getting things to build thats really killing me at the moment. I 
> was discussing merlin with a friend who said merlin sound very much like 
> a project called phoenix, but was unable to help since he had not 
> working with it for quite sometime. I really want start coding with


> ------------
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> PGPKEY-C2802FC3
> 
> On Jul 9, 2004, at 12:10 PM, Idris B Saliu wrote:
> 
>> Hello All,
>>
>>   I just found out about merlin/avalon and very interested in using it 
>> for me current project. However, I'm lost on how to go about learning 
>> more about it. I've read through the documentation on the website, but 
>> I've not really been able to get much out it. Are there any other 
>> source for information on the project, like HOWTO and sample codes 
>> which shows you step by step how to go about developing with 
>> Avalon/Merlin. Any information would be really helpful, thanks in 
>> advance.
>>
>> /idris
>> ------------
>> PGPKEY-C2802FC3
>>
>> ps: I was trying to do the helloworld sample on the apache site was 
>> unable to locate the maven command. I'm not sure my merlin package is 
>> complete. Please help
>>
> 
> 
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