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Book Review: Apache Maven 2 Effective Implementation

2009-12-13T23:26:00.000Z

Apache Maven 2 Effective Implementation
Brett Porter and Maria Odea Ching
Packt Publishing
ISBN: 1847194540

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Apache Maven 2 Effective Implementation is an introduction to using Apache Maven 2 and, to a lesser extent, Apache Archiva and Apache Continuum. The book provides a basic introduction to using Apache Maven 2 as a build tool for application development. The audience of the book is Java developers with moderate to no experience with Maven 2.

Effective Implementation kicks off with a quick introduction to Maven basics by setting up a build for a simple web application (a Java EE WAR). This introduction is quite good and does provide the reader with enough information in a relatively small number of pages to be effective, without going overboard.

The second chapter jumps into installing and using Archiva with Maven. I found this chapter to be awkward and confusing. The chapter seems to be intended to introduce the general concept of Maven Repositories and Repository Managers, but seems to miss he mark. Most of the chapter is wasted on installing and setting up Archiva.

Chapters three through six make up for the slight stumble by providing a thorough and representative use of Maven in a more practical example application. Chapter three initiates a set of projects and works through the basics of building with Maven. Chapter four guides the reader through testing with Maven with the projects started in Chapter three. Chapter five works through the possibilities of documentation and reporting with Maven. The sixth chapter provides an overview of interesting Maven plugins that can be utilized to provide commonly requested features for builds, testing and reporting. For those without any Maven experience, these chapters provide a good overview of day-to-day Maven use and a number of tips and insights to make Maven more usable and productive.

Chapter seven, Maven Best Practices, is a mishmash of various tips and tricks that didn't fit into the narrative of the proceeding chapter. As a long-time Maven user, I found this chapter the most interesting, as there were a few hidden secrets that I learned about.

The remaining chapters are mostly focused on Archiva and Continuum. Though interesting and containing a few nuggets of value, they're mostly bogged down by more trivial content -- setting up this, tweaking that. This quickly gets tedious and tends to induce skimming, which means that some of the good bits are missed. I think some of the content in these chapters could have been pulled into the appendices, where could then referenced when actually needed. An external reference web site would also work well.

There are a few appendices, though I think the first two could have just been chapters themselves, especially the Troubleshooting Maven appendix. The Recent Maven Features probably could have been matched up with chapters three, four, five and six as an advanced features chapter. The third appendix Migrating Archiva and Continuum Data is a good example of an appendix and a template for factoring out the administrative content I mentioned previously.

Overall, Apache Maven 2 Effective Implementation is a good introduction to Maven and provides a great reference for getting new and recently new users of Maven. For those with some Maven experience already, there are still a few good bits of insight. For those interested in going beyond Maven and using Archiva and Continuum to take the next step in automation, there's definitely plenty of good content on getting all three to work together.

Disclosure: I am a member of the Apache Software Foundation, a committer and PMC member of the Apache Harmony project and I have contributed a few patches to the Apache Maven project.

Moving to Gemcutter - keeping it clean

2009-11-21T00:04:00.000Z

It seems the transition from the RubyForge Gems server (http://gems.rubyforge.org/) to the Gemcutter Gems server (http://gemcutter.org/) is nearly complete. The address of the former is now a DNS alias of the later.

If you're like me, you like to keep up-to-date, tidy and clean. In this case that means keeping my RubyGem sources list clean. Here's the quick and simple steps I took on my RubyGem installs to get everything cleaned up.

Add Gemcutter Server - $ sudo gem sources -a http://gemcutter.org/
Remove RubyForge Server - $ sudo gem sources -r http://gems.rubyforge.org/
Remove GitHub Server - $ sudo gem sources -r http://gems.github.com

Note - if you get any errors about the server not being present in the cache, this may be due to a minor difference in the URL used to add the server and the one being used to remove it. For example, a trailing slash. Run sudo gem sources to see all of the servers and the exact URL that's configured.

First Book Review

2009-11-18T01:50:00.005Z

In the next week or so I'll be doing my first book review. I was sent a request last week by Packt to review the book Apache Maven 2 Effective Implementation. I'm looking forward to it, as I've been using Maven 2 for quite a while and I have plenty of opinions to share.

Full disclosure: I am a member of the Apache Software Foundation, a committer and PMC member of the Apache Harmony project and I have contributed a few patches to the Apache Maven project.

Adding the accept-charset attribute to HTML forms with Rails helpers

2009-11-06T20:50:00.005Z

An oft unused attribute of the FORM element of HTML is the accept-charset. I'm a bit of a encoding fanatic and someone pointed out to me that I wasn't setting this attribute on a Rails application that I'd hacked up. As I'm always interested in learning something new about Rails, I decided to try setting this attribute in my application.

When using the base FormTagHelper#form_tag, it's pretty simple.


<% form_tag(search_solutions_path, {:'accept-charset' => "UTF-8"}) do -%>
...
<% end -%>

Note the use of the quotes around the symbol accept-charset. This is required because a hyphen requires escaping to be used in Ruby symbols.

When using the RESTful FormHelper#form_for, it's a bit more complicated and not very clearly documented. After some debugging and trial & error, I figured out that you have to add another level of indirection to add HTML options.


<% form_for(@model, {:html => {:'accept-charset' => "UTF-8"}}) do |f| %>
...
<% end -%>

Eight months

2007-10-30T01:49:00.000Z

Time seems to be speeding up. It's now T+8 months since Maddie joined the Beyer fray. It's incredible to see how much she's changed and grown. She's sitting up. She's gabbing and talking. She's rolling, everywhere. When we put her in her rocketship-shaped walker, she runs around, chasing and hollering at the cats. Her latest noise and action is growling with a slight grimace. Needless to say it's very cute.

Parents...

2007-03-24T03:56:00.000Z

Well we've been parents for 11 days now. It's hard work, but Maddie is a very good baby and has even let us sleep for 4 hours at a time on a few occasions! She likes the 'open air pee', so we've amassed quite a bit of dirty laundry over the past few days. Maybe it is the smooth fuzzy changing table covers that make her relax...
Dad is a much better diaper changer than I am, but I've been getting in some good practice recently.
Several people have asked for some updated photos, so I'm going to attempt to post some on the gallery site.

Link to photos

Here's Maddie

2007-03-14T00:31:00.000Z

Our little bundle finally arrived!

Madeline Elizabeth Beyer
2007-03-12 @ 0844
5lb 12oz
19.5in

Check out the latest pictures on our gallery site.

Maddie in 3D

2007-02-12T04:53:00.000Z

Last week we went to a imaging center to have a 3D sonogram of the baby. There was no medical value to this sonogram, but it made Dani and her mother quite happy. In any case, I've posted some of the better images from the session on our gallery site, check it out.

Lilly's Dimensions

2007-02-02T16:25:00.000Z

Due to popular request, here's what I know about Lilly's size.

Weight - 8 pounds, 14 ounces
Height - 21 inches

Lilly B

2007-02-02T03:24:00.000Z

The next generation of the Beyer clan has officially been born.

Lilliana Lynn Beyer.

Lilly is the child of my younger sister and soon to be cousin of our incoming bundle.

Check out the first photos. Almost unbelievable, my mother took the photos with her mobile phone and messaged them to Dani.

Baby's room

2007-01-29T02:42:00.000Z

I've been working on the "baby's room" for the past few weeks. I've posted some photos of the process and end product on our gallery site.

Readings - A History of the Middle Ages

2007-01-24T02:36:00.000Z

I've seemingly become quite the dork in the past few years and I've been reading a lot of history, especially ancient history. I think this interested sparked because of our visits to Aachen, Rome and Paris. In any case, over the holiday I finished reading A History of the Middle Ages by Joseph Dahmus.

I picked up this book while browsing the isles at Barnes & Noble. The broad title grabbed my attention and the "Bargain Bin" price sold it for me, so I snagged it up. As one might imagine, the book is a bit of a slow read, but it was interesting enough and I learned and have forgotten more than I could've imagined about the middle ages. What I found most interesting about the book was that a significant portion was dedicated to the decline of Rome and the related rise of Byzantium, which preceded the fuzzy delineation that is the beginning of the middle ages. I now have a much better understanding and appreciation of the Byzantine art style that I never quite understood before.

The obvious bits of the book revolve around medieval society. The feudal lifestyle: serfs, lords and the whole bit. Apparently, the dark ages were quite dark, at least intellectually. This is the standard fair in most text books, but the book goes into quite a bit of detail. The list of kings, queens and emperors is quite extensive as well, but most of the names flew by. The French and the English seemed to be at each other constantly. The Germanic tribes seemed to be rather unorganized during this period. The strength and influence of the Islamic nations was something I certainly wasn't aware of, especially on the Iberian peninsula.

The holidays are over ...

2007-01-04T03:09:00.000Z

The year 2006 has expired and we've slipped into 2007. The activity at work tends to wind down at the end of the year, so I usually augment the days I'm given off with some vacation to allow for some continuous time off.

Family time

We spent a large part of holidays with my parents and my sister. They visited for several days over Christmas. Fortunately, the weather here in KC was extremely mild (~50 F), which is a nice break for them, as they hail from the tundra-like environs of northern Illinois. It was nice to spend time with them. My sister is mega-pregnant. I assumed her baby would be big, but wow.

Gaming

A majority of my time off (at least in my mind), was spent playing video games. When I could get Dani off of the Wii, I clocked in as much time as I could on Zelda TP. According to my quest log, I've put in about 25 hours and I think I'm only have way complete. The game is enormous.

Dani and her sister love Wii Sports. We spent the waning hours of 2006 playing each other in tennis and bowling. Dani has been bragging to everyone that she has a new high score of 235 in bowling. I think part of the appeal is the personal characters, the Miis. Dani and Tres have already had to make multiple modifications to theirs.

I also downloaded the Internet Channel trial for the Wii. Web browsing on the Wii is little more than a novelty at the moment. It isn't the killer app by itself, but there seems to be enough buzz to eventually produce one.

One of my Christmas gifts was a Wii Points card. I quickly cashed that in and downloaded a couple games for the Wii's Virtual Console. I picked Zelda (the original), Super Mario Bros and Sonic the Hedgehog. I loved these games on their original consoles and they are still great via the Virtual Console.

Another chunk of my gaming time was spent playing the re-imagined Final Fantasy III for Nintendo DS. I love the old-school NES RPGs, like Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy I, which I've been replaying in their Gameboy Advanced re-released forms. Final Fantasy III has the same playing style and I believe the exact same storyline, but the graphics and interface have been completely redesigned and they are a perfect fit for the Nintendo DS. I'm especially fond of the cutesy character styles where everyone looks like a 10-year old. It's definitely preferable to the square blobs of the originals. Hopefully the game won't take too long (12 hours already), I have two more portable games in my queue I need to get to, Final Fantasy V Advanced and Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin.

Wii in the house

2006-12-05T04:52:00.000Z

I was finally able to acquire a Nintendo Wii. I did have to wait for two weeks after the launch and pay a small premium for someone else to stand in line at a Wal-Mart and post it up on eBay, but it was worth it. The Wii is pretty sweet. Dani was skeptical at first, but after a few hours of playing Wii Sports, she was even enjoying it. Unfortunately, both Dani and I had a bit of a sore arm and back from all of the swinging about that's required with the Wiimote.

The bundle I bought came with an extra Wiimote, nunchuck and the game The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Anyone who's a Nintendo fan knows that if it's a Zelda game, it's going to be good. Fortunately, Twilight Princess lives up to this reputation easily. Note, I'm only a couple hours into the game, so I can't give a complete review.

Baby's going to be a soccer (futbol) player

2006-12-02T21:01:00.000Z

This morning Dani and were playing with her belly, the baby's current residence, and we received some feedback. She was making some large thumps within 'the belly'. Dani said it was her way of saying she's hungry. I think the baby's just a natural striker and was practicing her corner kicks. I'm not a huge sports fan, but how cute is a little girl with a pony tail, a soccer jersey, shorts, shin guards and cleats? That's an immeasurable quantity of cute.

Speaking of cute, Dani is looking cute as ever with her little belly. She's seemingly having an easy pregnancy. She hasn't been sick, she's only gained 10 pounds and every one's telling her she looks skinny. I guess the 10 pounds is just the baby and the 'roast beef'.

From the mouths of old men

2006-11-11T20:06:00.000Z

Here's what my father said when he found out we were having a baby girl:

You're going to have a little princess.

Here's what Dani's father said when he found out we were having a baby girl:

I'd tell you congratulations, but I've had girls.

My father-in-law has three daughters, all of which are a challenge in their own special ways and my father has one daughter, but between the age of 12 and 18, she was likely as much of challenge as three would be. As such, I think the Grandfathers are basically saying the same thing ...

I'm not scared

2006-11-10T04:24:00.000Z

My latest guilty pleasure is the first album from the West End Girls, Goes Petshopping. In case the band's name and album name didn't give it away, the group, a female duet of Sweddish teenagers, is a Pet Shop Boys cover band. As a long time PSB fan I couldn't resist purchasing the disc. I must say I was quite surprised to find that the album is pretty good. The majority of the album is made up of PSB standards, such as Domino Dancing, It's a Sin and the obvious West End girls. The most recent PSB song covered is You only tell me you love me when you're drunk. Unfortunately, this song doesn't quite work for the duo, at least not at this point in their career.

Wii seeker

2006-11-07T03:30:00.000Z

A rather inventive site showed up in one of my Google Alerts this evening - Wii Seeker. It uses Google Maps and some inventory data for Target and Best Buy stores. There will certainly be some Wii's available in my area, but with most stores having somewhere between 20 and 90 consoles, it seems I may be able to acquire the infamous Wii on launch day if I picked the right store.

20 week ultrasound

2006-11-04T21:02:00.000Z

Yesterday, Dani and I went to the doctor for baby. Dani's 20 weeks into the pregnancy and showing a little belly. This visit included an ultrasound. The doctor say that everything is wonderful, the baby's the right size and doing what it's supposed to. Unfortunately, Dani's placenta is seemingly not keeping up its part of the bargain; the doctor says Dani has a minor (?) case of placenta previa. The doctor didn't seem too concerned about it, but asked Dani to go on vaginal rest (this may be my terminology, not the physician's), which means I have to keep my bits to myself for the time being.

In better news, we did find out the gender of the baby and according to the technologist and the "three lines" on the ultrasound image we'll be having a little girl. It's exciting to know the gender. My father said I'm going to have a "little princess". In any case, Dani and I have to come to agreement on a name, which doesn't seem to be an easy task so far.

In the beginning ...

2006-11-04T02:29:00.000Z

It seems like everyone has a blog these days, so I thought I'd join the fray. And now for something completely different ...