src/site/apt/maven-features.apt

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 Maven Features
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 Jason van Zyl
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 12 October 2005
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Feature Summary

 The following are the key features of Maven in a nutshell:

 * Simple project setup that follows best practices - get a new project or module started in seconds
 
 * Consistent usage across all projects means no ramp up time for new developers coming onto a project

 * Superior dependency management including automatic updating, dependency closures (also known as transitive dependencies)

 * Able to easily work with multiple projects at the same time
 
 * A large and growing repository of libraries and metadata to use out of the box, and arrangements in place with the largest Open Source projects for
   real-time availability of their latest releases
 
 * Extensible, with the ability to easily write plugins in Java or scripting languages

 * Instant access to new features with little or no extra configuration
 
 * Ant tasks for dependency management and deployment outside of Maven

 * Model based builds:
   Maven is able to build any number of projects into predefined output types
   such as a JAR, WAR, or distribution based on metadata about the project, without
   the need to do any scripting in most cases.

 * Coherent site of project information:
   Using the same metadata as for the build process, Maven is able to generate a
   web site or PDF including any documentation you care to add, and adds to that
   standard reports about the state of development of the project.
   Examples of this information can be seen at the bottom of the left-hand navigation of
   this site under the "Project Information" and "Project Reports" submenus.

 * Release management and distribution publication:
   Without much additional configuration, Maven will integrate with your source control
   system such as CVS and manage the release of a project based on a certain tag.
   It can also publish this to a distribution location for use by other projects.
   Maven is able to publish individual outputs such as a JAR, an archive including other
   dependencies and documentation, or as a source distribution.

 * Dependency management:
   Maven encourages the use of a central repository of JARs and other dependencies. Maven
   comes with a mechanism that your project's clients can use to
   download any JARs required for building your project from a
   central JAR repository much like Perl's CPAN. This allows users
   of Maven to reuse JARs across projects and encourages communication
   between projects to ensure that backward compatibility issues are
   dealt with. We are collaborating with the folks at {{{http://www.ibiblio.org}Ibiblio}} who have graciously
   allowed the central repository to live on their servers.

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~~ this needs to be greatly expanded and is too detailed here ... jvz