This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Java Buzz
by Jens E.
Original Post: Here we go again: Maven
Feed Title: MyEclipse Blog
Feed URL: http://www.jroller.com/myeclipseblog/feed/entries/rss
Feed Description: IDE/tools issues & comments
Let me start my response to your harsh criticism by stating that the sky is not falling and the issues you raise are only a short lived situation.
You asked "How did MyEclipse get their Maven integration so wrong?" without sharing the whole truth of the strategy I shared with you prior to the release of Maven4MyEclipse in MyEclipse 6.5. Let me share with everyone that the issues Jason outlines are already resolved and will be released as part of MyEclipse 7.0M2 in two weeks. If Jason would have reached out to us he would be informed and could have avoided this little rant of a temporary issue.
Let's step back and I'll share with everyone the big picture that I shared with Jason on two prior occasions before the initial release of Maven4MyEclipse. The first is that we are very excited about the growing enterprise adoption rate of Maven technology among MyEclipse corporate customers. So, we listened to them and their complaints about Maven as it is today. Our initial release strategy for rolling out Maven4MyEclipse to the community has been a two-phase rapid release process. The first release was to get Maven in the hands of thousands of previously non-Maven users (well over 300,000 users in the last 6 weeks). The second release was to focus on the concerns of existing Maven users.
Again, Jason's issues are concentrated towards the existing Maven user of which the upcoming second release of Maven4MyEclipse will address at the full level of m2e with additional enhancements.
When you talk about MyEclipse getting Maven wrong you have to step back and see the forest rather than trees. But you knew this per our early discussion and have elected to omit that fact. As I stated earlier, we are excited about Maven and our initial concern that lead us to initially focus on new users over the m2e user was our concern for the half million MyEclipse users who have never used Maven, or worse yet, have used it and discarded it due to the usual Maven challenges. So we fixed those problems first. Unfortunately, we left a gap for m2eclipse user until this next release, MyEclipse 7.0M2 release.
Counter to your claim that we should listen to our users, I should point out we did just that. Specifically, our first releases focused on the "Maven Haters" who have always bumped into Maven's shortcomings and rejected it outright. With MyEclipse, there is no "first day off" to figure out how to get your jars into your repository and project. Maven4MyEclipse just does it for the user, behind the scenes. That's a half million MyEclipse users that don't have to fight that battle, something we're pleased about. We also introduced wizards for the sometimes-confused Maven novice who had never installed their own legacy jars into a repository; we even focused on making it a bit easier to point to the JDK. Most importantly of course, we made sure that Maven was seamless for as many of the existing MyEclipse project structures as possible. "Seamless" is a word not historically used by Maven users, so we are pretty proud of that as well.
Jason, it might not look like we are an interested part of the Maven community because we took our first Maven releases to address so many issues that were important to the "other" community; that community of people who were not interested in Maven but rather just need tools to get their job done. We believe, as you do, that the Java community can benefit greatly through expanding the adoption of Maven. But our customers always vote with their feet, so we took care of the "other" community first, and are now circling back to attend to our closer Maven friends in a couple of weeks.
In summary, had you bothered to contact the MyEclipse team instead of spending hours researching this issue for the sole purpose of spreading FUD, you would have found that MyEclipse 7.0 has already addressed all of your quoted gripes - but you knew that. So, stay tuned. I encourage you reach out to us when you discover any issues (as we have done with your team with the intent to collaborate and serve our combined user base). No one wins by forcing their will on others. It is only through true collaboration and compromise that we achieve an enduring standard and satisfy the spirit of the open source model.
Best regards, Wayne Parrott VP, Product Development
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