Publishing nbm artifacts from an Ant project to a Maven repository

[Fabrizio Giudici]

During the conversion to Maven of my Platform projects made with Ant,
one of the most frustrating thing is the lack of incrementality in my
process related to dependencies. I have hundreds of modules and, of
course, the regular way is to start from wrapper libraries, then modules
that don't depend on anything else but libraries and the Platform, then
modules depending on the previous set modules, etc etc. until I've done.
Unfortunately, this means that the most interesting artifact (the final
application) will come last.

Using the Ant Tasks for Maven I'm being able to use both systems at the
same time (of course, temporarily). For instance, I've started using
Maven to create my custom platform (via mvn nbm:cluster) and retrieving
some dependant NBM modules that are ready. Unfortunately, I have still
dozens of dependant modules that aren't ready yet and are blocking me.
My concern about the lack of incrementality in this process is that I
can't incrementally test. I'm sure that if I go on making conversions
for two weeks without testing in the meantime I'll get a broken toy,
with a myriad of small introduced bugs hard to find.

So, my question. Is it possible to take an Ant Platform Project and
deliver the nbm artifacts to a Maven Repo? It's ok if I have to manually
add some meta-info for the published POMs. If it is possible, I could
instantly make available dozens of low-level modules, then focus on the
application, and then incrementally move the modules to a purely Maven
project. I suppose it's possible, as NetBeans itself is compiled with
Ant, still you can find its NBM in a Maven repo.

Thanks.

--
Fabrizio Giudici - Java Architect, Project Manager
Tidalwave s.a.s. - "We make Java work. Everywhere."
weblogs.java.net/blog/fabriziogiudici - www.tidalwave.it/blog
address-removed - mobile: +39 348.150.6941

[mkleint]

http://mojo.codehaus.org/nbm-maven-plugin/populate-repository-mojo.html
it's used for creating netbeans.org module repository. but beware that
the maven pom generated is not entirely correct. it's good for depending
on in your maven app, but not for building the project itself.

Milos

Fabrizio Giudici wrote:

[Robert C Kelsey]

Yours is an excellent question. I have a similar problem, although I am
converting from VB6 to Java. Trying to do this within the NetBeans IDE has
been a challenge, with over 100 modules and 50 forms. Now, I am looking at
the NetBeans Platform, and it seems to me that I can use it to incrementally
develop a piece at a time. At least, this is what I think I am seeing in
the videos and tutorials.

What I am doing is to identify the individual parts and develop starting
with the most basic leg, from top to bottom, and then develop the next leg,
and so forth. It seems to be an approach that, for me at least, was next to
impossible using the barebones IDE.

Robert Kelsey

-----Original Message-----
From: Fabrizio Giudici [mailto:address-removed]
Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2009 12:32 PM
To: address-removed
Subject: [openide-dev] Publishing nbm artifacts from an Ant project to a
Maven repository

During the conversion to Maven of my Platform projects made with Ant, one of
the most frustrating thing is the lack of incrementality in my process
related to dependencies. I have hundreds of modules and, of course, the
regular way is to start from wrapper libraries, then modules that don't
depend on anything else but libraries and the Platform, then modules
depending on the previous set modules, etc etc. until I've done.
Unfortunately, this means that the most interesting artifact (the final
application) will come last.

Using the Ant Tasks for Maven I'm being able to use both systems at the same
time (of course, temporarily). For instance, I've started using Maven to
create my custom platform (via mvn nbm:cluster) and retrieving some
dependant NBM modules that are ready. Unfortunately, I have still dozens of
dependant modules that aren't ready yet and are blocking me.
My concern about the lack of incrementality in this process is that I can't
incrementally test. I'm sure that if I go on making conversions for two
weeks without testing in the meantime I'll get a broken toy, with a myriad
of small introduced bugs hard to find.

So, my question. Is it possible to take an Ant Platform Project and deliver
the nbm artifacts to a Maven Repo? It's ok if I have to manually add some
meta-info for the published POMs. If it is possible, I could instantly make
available dozens of low-level modules, then focus on the application, and
then incrementally move the modules to a purely Maven project. I suppose
it's possible, as NetBeans itself is compiled with Ant, still you can find
its NBM in a Maven repo.

Thanks.

--
Fabrizio Giudici - Java Architect, Project Manager Tidalwave s.a.s. - "We
make Java work. Everywhere."
weblogs.java.net/blog/fabriziogiudici - www.tidalwave.it/blog
address-removed - mobile: +39 348.150.6941

[Fabrizio Giudici]

mkleint wrote:

[mkleint]

yes, as the documentation suggests, it will convert the netbeans
installation. whatever there is will be generated, if you want to skip
platform cluster, you have to remove it. it doesn't know and care
whether you've constructed the installation from a maven repo. It
actually has no way to tell anyway..
it will use org.netbeans.api groupid for everything with public api and
org.netbeans.modules for non-public modules. Again it has no way to tell
what groupid you would like to have, there is no such information
anywhere in the installation.
I have no idea what the format of files in target/updates is, but the
goal requires a flat folder content just with nbm files (with the
correct codenamebase as file name)..

if it's not good enough for your purpose, you will have to write your
own maven metadata generating goal I guess.

Milos

Fabrizio Giudici wrote: