What problem(s) does Maven solve?

Question

What problem(s) does Apache Maven solve? Am I correct in thinking that it basically solves (prevents even) versioning nightmares on external third party .DLLs. Any examples of how it would help in this? DOes it also help in any way, with inter-project (or package in Java) dependencies?

Finally, is it basically a build automation tool (like the popular Ant) with versioning functionality added?

Thanks

Answer 1

Yes, Maven solves (at least try) versioning problems but also all dependency situation you could have; such as B needs C and A needs B, therefore C will be downloaded and used in A.

But this is for projects, you can have dependency to a project you can't specify a particular package or a particular class.

And it's a build tool like ant, with a lot of plugins to handle versionning, doc generation, etc.

I can't detail every feature of maven because it would be more or less a copy/paste from the maven web site.

I just suggest you to try it and see for yourself. Like in every technology there are fanboys, haters; and like in every technology, the best way to have a real opinion is to actually try it.

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Resources :

• maven.apache.org - What is Maven?
• maven.apache.org - Maven features