[fedora-java] Java build systems stop requiring java-devel

[Mikolaj Izdebski]

On 07/13/2015 01:49 AM, Peter Larsen wrote:
> On Jul 10, 2015 8:39 AM, "Mikolaj Izdebski" <mizdebsk at redhat.com> wrote:
>>
>> Java build systems (Ant, Maven, Gradle) used to require "java-devel"
>> because their typical usages involves code compilation, which requires
>> full JDK.
>>
>> In Fedora 23 I've just replaced hard requirement on "java-devel" with
>> recommends.
> 
> Why? Most builds require javac.

That's exactly my point - *most*, but not all.

> Unless you are only installing and not
> building why would you not want the java-devel?

Ant, Maven and Gradle are generic build systems. While they are
typically used for building Java projects, they are certainly capable of
more.

Some examples:
- Maven supports "toolkits", which allow you to compile project with
third-party JDK; in this case Maven can be ran with pure JRE
- Ant, Maven and Gradle can all be used to compile non-Java code (such as C)
- I've seen Ant scripts used for application deployment, which don't
compile anything, but download and copy files around
- Maven can also be used for app deployment (for eg. wildfly:deploy)
- I've seen Maven used for static website gerenation (convert Markdown
to HTML, apply templates, fetch CSS and JavaScript resources from remote
repos, assemble WAR file)

and so on...

-- 
Mikolaj Izdebski
Software Engineer, Red Hat
IRC: mizdebsk