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Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2014 10:02:07 -0500
From: Ron Wheeler <rwheeler@artifact-software.com>
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Organization: Artifact Software
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To: Maven Users List <users@maven.apache.org>
Subject: Value of a prodyct comparison
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I am not sure that I agree with this section of 
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/MAVEN/Project+Description+Contest*
"Note: *this does not preclude us from including a "feature comparison 
matrix" page somewhere in our site... but we should recognise that such 
a matrix would likely be biased by our philosophy, which most likely 
negates the utility of hosting such a page on our site. Let us leave the 
feature comparison matrices to those that have no axe to grind (and 
spend our energy ensuring that their matrices are fair to us, just as 
other solutions in this space should be doing for the representation of 
their tools on such matrices)"

There may be some value is writing the comparison from a Maven point of 
view.
It does give a chance to describe where there are differences and why 
they are important from the POV of the "Maven way". Maven is based on 
certain beliefs about the way software should be developed and built. As 
most politicians can tell you, it is better to define yourself than have 
someone else define you.
It is most uncertain that third parties will give the same weighting to 
the value of certain practices and features that the Maven community would.
It is clear from the discussions in this forum, that it is easy to get 
off to a shaky start when first trying to use Maven. A person doing a 
quick evaluation of development tools could easily bring with them some 
assumptions about software development processes and come up with a very 
distorted view of Maven.

I think that an accurate product comparison written from the maven POV 
is fair and useful for someone coming to Maven for the first time. It 
will highlight things that Maven does that other systems don't do as 
well and there is no reason to exclude things where Ant is better and 
explain why the Maven community does not consider that a deal breaker.

Ron

-- 
Ron Wheeler
President
Artifact Software Inc
email: rwheeler@artifact-software.com
skype: ronaldmwheeler
phone: 866-970-2435, ext 102


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