Hello List,
Today I am working on Gradle(Fx) & Maven integration for a test project
of mine. It is my first trip in these fields
so I might tell you things you already know. However: I think It is
important to gain a little overview:
A "repository" refers to a online storage (url) of released files (if we
build flex for example). All those repositories
I will mention are able to deal with *dependencies* that means that the
project can refer to other projects that
need to be downloaded as well.
The project descriptors that are hosted in a repository usually have
following specifications:
groupId (example: "org.apache.flex") the overview of the project
that releases the project
artifactId (example: "compiler") the installable component
version (example: "4.8") Version of the project
description (example: "The flex compiler") Just some text to make
listing easier
I took a look into following repository systems:
Maven
Maven hosts artifacts[1] in ".pom" files in maven repositories[2].
It is relatively easy for apache projects to get hosted[3] (as I am not
a member-I can not really initiate anything in this direction).
Other projects would need to be hosted at Sonatype.
The process for hosting at Sonatype is pretty convoluted: There is
a 11-step-guide [4] available that explains that.
This is important because projects Flex needs like Mockolate and
eventually FlexUnit (or others in future) would need
to be found in a repository as well.
<rant>Maven manages to explain all complexity at once (more confused
than enlightened after reading the docs).
"easing in" seems to be a term they do not understand.</rant>
IVY [4]
Additionally to supporting maven repositories, Ivy has its own
non-central repository system[5] that is easier to use
than Maven (imho). IVY files[6] also allow additionally to
setting conflicting projects or projects that shouldn't be used.
There is a general purpose public repository called "ivyroundup"[7].
Debian Packages
Its sort of an exotic thought but basically the same things are
already being dealt with quite effectively and a lot more general
with debian packages (.deb files). Indeed it works a lot faster
than Maven in my experience and it has a more general
approach. Of course they are platform specific but I guess every
linux dev would jump in the air and kiss us if we would
provide them. I have found quite a clean explanation here [8]. My
thinking is like: It would be possible to deploy flex to
debian packages and create a Gradle/Maven/etc. plugin that uses
those packages.
haXe
haXe has its own, rather comfortable, repository system that is
accessible via the haxelib command[9]. As haxe is able to
compile from swc's it is possible to somewhat host the flex swc's
there. Not sure if that is an reasonable approach.
I do not think that the Maven repository system is good for the flex/as3
community because it is rather difficult for developers
to get started. For example: I am an as3 developer and I want to publish
my project on maven somewhere its quite a bit of stressful work.
However: I guess minds are already made up about maven so:
Mojos for Flex
FlexMojos[10] already offers maven artifacts(data) and mojos
(plugin) at its repository[11]. This means they actually mirror Flex
releases there. Aside from the fact that it doesn't look "official"
at all, there are two obvious problems with that
1) It takes some while after an release until its hosted
2) Other systems like Gradle/Ivy have to be sure that this
system offers everything
For making this nice of course the build script needs to be
modified to push artifacts to the apache repository[3]. Those artifacts
would somehow needed to be structured:
groupId: org.apache.flex
artifacts:
(binary and ant task)
asc: The actionscript compiler
mxmlc: The mxml compiler
compc: The component(swc) compiler
asdoc: the asdoc generator
(subtypes for swc/source/documentation/translation(each
language)):
framework: the core framework
spark: the spark components
halo: the halo theme
mx: the mx components
(... etc. for all the other as3/mxml projects)
I _think_ it would be best if *each* artifact would get its own
version number (as it would allow a better separation of the dependencies).
From here on I think some decisions would need to be made:
1) Where does apache flex deploy to?
2) How detailed should it be.
3) What will it use to do those deployment?
Please let me know if I understood something entirely wrong.
yours
Martin.
FYI: Gradle is a *lot* easier to get into than Maven (as3 developers
should love it) but GradleFX is certainly not as mature as FlexMojos but
I can see it catching up soon.
[1] http://maven.apache.org/pom.html
[2]
http://maven.apache.org/guides/mini/guide-central-repository-upload.html#Approved_Repository_Hosting
[3] http://www.apache.org/dev/repository-faq.html
[4]
https://docs.sonatype.org/display/Repository/Sonatype+OSS+Maven+Repository+Usage+Guide#SonatypeOSSMavenRepositoryUsageGuide-11.WhatDoPeopleThinkAboutOSSRH
[5] http://ant.apache.org/ivy/history/latest-milestone/resolver/url.html
[6] http://ant.apache.org/ivy/history/latest-milestone/ivyfile.html
[7] http://code.google.com/p/ivyroundup/
[8]
http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/Linux-For-Devices-Articles/How-to-make-deb-packages/
[9] http://haxe.org/doc/haxelib/using_haxelib
[10] http://flexmojos.sonatype.org/index.html
[11] http://repository.sonatype.org/content/groups/flexgroup/
