Managing Multiple Dependencies

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Ivy

  • Ant/Java based dependency management tool
  • Flexible back end artifact repository

Maven

  • Large build/dependency/project managment tool
  • Does much more than dependency management, which can make it overkill if that's all you want

Fig

  • Can be found on github
  • Small tool for managing dependencies
  • Able to manage classpath, library path, etc for executable being managed
  • Matt Foemmel (original co-author of Continuous Integration paper)/Chris Read

Gradle

  • Build tool
  • Build in dependency management (uses Ivy internally)

Versioning/Configuration management

  • Have a good policy of how to introduce api changes
  • Dependencies should always compile against you
  • Chris: there doesn't seem to be any tool that can automatically prevent api breaking changes

Tom D question:

  • Module A has some production code, as well as some unit tests, integration tests and scenario tests.
  • If there are some useful *testing* utilities, should they be packaged for use externally
  • Chris R: generally OK, Consider the test code as a different target environment (e.g. prod vs test)

Is this a design smell?

  • module B depends on test code from module A, therefore get module A to publish separate test utility artifact
  • comment: break out the test utility into its own module
  • however, this will cause a cyclic dependency between B and A test utils

Question:

  • How to express dependencies of modules with different languages/artefact types?
  • Dependency information should be independent of any specific CI system
  • Ivy or Fig look like good candidates for these problems