• Author and Title: By Ethan McCue. The title is a ? ->! of a recent Reddit thread and a continuation of a series of posts.
• Purpose: Go over Maven/Gradle alternatives in a Reddit thread, explain why they don't meet the need, give a status update on work, and ask for reader help.
• What is Wanted: A smooth on-ramp from java src/Main.java to running with dependencies, packaging, and using Java tools. No focus on maximal efficiency.
• Ant: A cross-platform scripting language with targets. Outsources dependencies to Ivy. Not a great path from java src/Main.java. Bundles jars in a single folder.
• Scorecard for Ant: 🔴 Clear path from java src/Main.java, 🟡 Clear path to making use of other tools, 🔴 Split dependencies across different paths.
• Mill: A Scala build tool with a history of breaking changes. Jumps into building code with Scala. Bundles modules but has a large gap between specified tasks and actual commands. Reuses --class-path for both --class-path and --module-path.
• Scorecard for Mill: 🔴 Clear path from java src/Main.java, 🔴 Clear path to making use of other tools, 🔴 Split dependencies across different paths.
• bld: From the Rife2 people, copies Maven directory layout. Has no overarching Task abstraction. Explicit support for modules but no obvious way to fill other paths.
• Scorecard for bld: 🔴 Clear path from java src/Main.java, 🟢 Clear path to making use of other tools, 🟡 Split dependencies across different paths.
• bach: Built around Java modules. Focuses on JDK tools. Doesn't solve the core dependency problem. Lack of documentation.
• Scorecard for bach (Disqualified): 🟡 Clear path from java src/Main.java, 🟢 Clear path to making use of other tools, 🔴 Split dependencies across different paths.
• pottery: Another "maven, but" with defaults and a yaml file. Can make different types of artifacts but can't put on --module-path and has a tight bundle.
• Scorecard for pottery: 🔴 Clear path from java src/Main.java, 🔴 Clear path to making use of other tools, 🔴 Split dependencies across different paths.
• jbang: Downloads dependencies with a comment at the top. Easy from java src/Main.java to jbang src/Main.java, but can't put on --module-path and not usable in other tooling.
• Scorecard for jbang: 🟢 Clear path from java src/Main.java, 🔴 Clear path to making use of other tools, 🔴 Split dependencies across different paths.
• java-jpm: Downloads dependencies and symlinks them. Easy from java src/Main.java to java -cp deps/* src/Main.java, but no support for different paths.
• Scorecard for java-jpm: 🟡 Clear path from java src/Main.java, 🟡 Clear path to making use of other tools, 🔴 Split dependencies across different paths.
• What has been worked on: The jresolve tool. Can print dependencies separated by platform specific path separators. Added --output-file and --output-directory arguments. Newest version uses jproject.toml to specify dependency usage and dump argfiles.
• What is needed help with: Teaching an IDE how to read dependencies from an argument file. Getting the java launcher to support nested argfiles. Tools looking in jproject.toml for config.