maven-archetype/maven-archetype-plugin/src/site/fml/faq.fml

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<faqs id="FAQ" title="Frequently Asked Questions">
  <part id="General">
    <faq id="What is Archetype?">
      <question>
        What is Archetype?
      </question>
      <answer>
        <p>In short, Archetype is a Maven project templating toolkit. An 
        archetype is defined as <i>an original pattern or model from which all 
        other things of the same  kind are made</i>. The names fits as we are 
        trying to provide a system that provides a consistent means of 
        generating Maven projects. Archetype will help authors create Maven 
        project templates for users, and provides users with the means to 
        generate parameterized versions of those project templates.</p>

        <p>Using archetypes provides a great way to enable developers quickly in
        a way consistent with best practices employed by your project or 
        organization. Within the Maven project we use archetypes to try and get 
        our users up and running as quickly as possible by providing a sample 
        project that demonstrates many of the features of Maven while 
        introducing new users to the best practices employed by Maven. In a 
        matter of seconds a new user can have a working Maven project to use as 
        a jumping board for investigating more of the features in Maven. We have
        also tried to make the Archetype mechanism additive and by that we mean 
        allowing portions of a project to be captured in an archetype so that 
        pieces or aspects of a project can be added to existing projects. A good
        example of this is the Maven site archetype. If, for example, you have 
        used the quick start archetype to generate a working project you can 
        then quickly create a site for that project by using the site archetype 
        within that existing project. You can do anything like this with 
        archetypes. </p>

        <p>You may want to standardize J2EE development within your organization
        so you may want to provide archetypes for EJBs, or WARs, or for your web
        services. Once these archetypes are created and deployed in your 
        organization's repository they are available for use by all developers 
        within your organization.</p>
      </answer>
    </faq>
    <faq id="What makes up an Archetype?">
      <question>
        What makes up an Archetype?
      </question>
      <answer>
        <p>Archetypes are packaged up in a JAR and they consist of the archetype
        metadata which describes the contents of archetype and a set of 
        <a href = "http://jakarta.apache.org/velocity">Velocity </a> templates 
        which make up the prototype project. If you would like to know how to 
        make your own archetypes please refer to our <a href = 
        "http://maven.apache.org/guides/mini/guide-creating-archetypes.html">
        Guide to creating archetypes</a>.</p>
      </answer>
    </faq>
  </part>
</faqs>