Meister Benefits Java Developers

Java developers face specific challenges when defining the compile and build process of their applications, including the management of source and library dependencies, the need for accelerating the compile and archive steps, building consistently inside and outside the IDEs, and the management of deployment descriptors.  OpenMake Meister addresses these and other challenges, supporting a simplified Java development practice. Meister's benefits for the Java developer include:

• Java Build Acceleration
• Build best practices and standards
• Transitive Dependency Management - Archiva Integration
• Refactoring support in the Build
• Management of Deployment Descriptors
• Customizations

Meister goes beyond what Apache Maven can do to support the Java developer by providing a built-in Continuous Integration and Build system that can substantially reduce build times while supporting the build best practice and standards needed for consistent and repeatable Java builds.

Fast, Efficient Builds

Only OpenMake Meister provides build acceleration features for Java.  Meister can take your Java compile and parallelize it using multi-core processing machines for the fastest Java builds possible.  Meister understands all of the dependencies in your Java build and can determine which objects can be built in parallel.  Meister also uses Build Avoidance technology to re-build only those objects that are out of date.  Because Meister is automating and managing the calls to the compilers, it can provide the acceleration in the build that competing tools cannot.  Meister has been proven to turn 8 hour builds into builds that run in as little 10 minutes.

Build Best Practices and Reuse

Standardize the way your Ant build scripts are designed. With Meister Build Services, you can write a single build script that will support hundreds of jars, wars and ears in exactly the same way with no redundant scripting. Support your lean methodology techniques by eliminating the confusion and redundancies often found in ad hoc scripts. Write one script to support many builds versus one script to support one build.

Transitive Dependency Management - Archiva Integration

Java developers face challenges when attempting to manage transitive dependencies - the many 3rd party jar files needed to build their application.  Meister allows you to standardize on the version and location where external libraries should be found and used.  This standardization can be integrated with your source code management tool so that your source repository manages the 3rd party components as well as your own source.  In addition, Meister integrates with Archiva for extensible repository management features.

Refactoring Builds

Meister recognizes when a developer has refactored their code through the IDE.  Meister supports the refactoring process by automatically updating the build scripts to reflect the changes caused by the refactoring process.  Updates to the build scripts are done with a simple click of a button inside the development IDE through Meister plug-ins.

Management of Deployment Descriptors

With Meister, creating multiple deployment descriptors for a single application is substantially simplified through the use of the Deployment Descriptor Build Methods. Each Meister build can create multiple deployable EAR files, each containing the correct version of the Deployment Descriptor. For large enterprises, this ability is critical in order to avoid costly deployment mistakes or costly manual scripting to fix the problem.

Customization through the SDK, Plug-ins and Build Methods

Meister provides an open SDK that allows Java developers to customize the build process to fit their unique development needs. Meister supports a wide variety of development tools and compilers without any customization requirements using IDE Plug-ins. In addition, developers can write their own reusable Build Methods to standardize their build process according to their needs and demands.