分发Java类库代码

Question

I need to put some old java class library code that I have into a repo, from where others can check it out and build it. You know, like any public repo.

But, I'm not sure what the best way to do this is in the java world. In old-fashioned projects, we just used to supply the build scripts and a list of dependencies. You gathered or installed the dependencies separately before running the build scripts.

But these days for many languages, you have package managers and the like that pull from remote locations and your build scripts need to include dependency fetching.

Basically, I'm not familiar with how java libs and programs are packaged.

Should I include the (dependency) libs in the repo? And update them whenever a new version is out?

Does java now have a package manager that will pull in the latest versions of the dependencies?

Do I leave it upto the people checking out to download the libs themselves before they run the build scripts?

I'd prefer it if the solution didn't involve installing a huge package manager. Gradle wants to pull in like 150MB+ of stuff and as far as I am aware, it isn't ubiquitous on java deployments.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Use Maven. I believe these days it's the #1 "package manager" (not a term that's usually used to describe it, but quite apt) by a large margin. It's built into Netbeans, IntelliJ IDEA, and I believe Eclipse.

However, it won't just "pull the latest versions" of your dependencies, since your application may break. Only the versions you specify. Therefore, you should periodically update (and test) your code to reduce incompatibilities when someone tries to use your library in an application which directly or indirectly pulls newer versions of the same libs (and they get into a bit of "dll hell"), or reduce your use of third-party libraries in general.

You should also consider publishing your library in a compiled form to Maven Central so that using your library would be as easy as adding a dependency to the pom.xml. The problem that Maven solves, after all, is not so much making it easy to build your library (since just bundling the dependencies gets you most of the way), but making it easy to use your library.