For those Maven haters out there there are five features that they must
love. Sure they may not like the implementation, but it can be
improved, the most important thing is the idea.
- Automatic downloading of dependencies.
- A consistent and standarized directory layout
- A consistent naming of goals (targets): war, jar, javadoc,…
- AOP like chain of goals (before invocation and after invocation pointcuts)
- A declarative descriptor of dependencies and project settings
They can be implemented using Ant, but why reinvent the wheel?
Carlos Sanchez's Weblog 
I do like how Maven eases the generation of documentation, website, etc. IMHO, the build process still needs work. But I do like it. I have started documenting Maven on my blog since currently there is a lack of documentation *I think*. Maven has good intentions but is still in it’s nascent stage. Hopefully I can even start contributing. Is there some documentation on the much touted “transitive dependency” topic?
I do like Maven too but when I switch to an ant project I’m welcomed by its speed, which is something than Maven needs to improve to attract reluctant experienced developers.
[Trackback] Almost every new web project starts with writing the Ant code to build a WAR. This build process is duplicated with some variance on every web application project I’ve ever worked on that uses Ant.
We lift our noses when we find developers copying…