Java is moving towards the micro lib world.
For some unknown reason it is called micro-frameworks.
I guess it is because Java can only have frameworks and no libraries..
The web is full with info about blogs about it and new micro libraries (frameworks!):

• http://blog.takipi.com/java-micro-frameworks-the-new-trend-you-cant-ignore/
• http://sparkjava.com/
• http://www.javaworld.com/article/2995526/development-tools/jump-into-java-micro-frameworks-part-1.html
• http://jodd.org/
• http://www.gajotres.net/best-available-java-restful-micro-frameworks/

There are no small libraries.. only small programmers..

But! How to publish one?

In node/npm it is fairly easy because:

• is supports source repositories like github out of the box.
• it does not require any module building beforehand
• it does not have any hard requirements to comply to
• libraries exist that make this process a painless single-command without any code change.

but in maven? How to you easily publish a micro library (framework!).

• Maven central has a bunch of requirements for you to comply to
• Maintaining your own maven repository is.. well.. no thank you.
• The process is pretty manual unless I work hard on the pom.

In comes JitPack

So I ran into this cool service called JitPack. JitPack is a maven repository that integrates with Github.
To publish your code all you need is to keep your code on github and use the following groupId and artifactId

<groupId>com.github.User</groupId>
<artifactId>Repo</artifactId>
<version>Tag</version>

So you need to

• make you groupId be : com.github.__github_username__
• make your artifactId be the repository name
• create a take for your version.
• make mvn install create the artifact

How to use it

In order to depend on this new library people will only have to add the JitPack repository like so

<repositories>
    <repository>
        <id>jitpack.io</id>
        <url>https://jitpack.io</url>
    </repository>
</repositories>

and then add the dependency with the details mentioned above.

How to troubleshoot?

Well, lets say mvn install crashed. How can you debug the problem?
You have a build log available at:

https://jitpack.io/com/github/__username__/__repo_name__/__tag__/build.log

Few reason to write a micro lib

Micro libs are awesome because:

• They are usually well documented due to the fact there’s not much to document.
• If needed, you can read and debug their code easily.
• The last point means you can also easily contribute.
• They are easy to write. Everyone has something to contribute and github makes it even easier with the markdown rendering.
• All of the above is what makes an active community, which in itself is awesome and brings diversity and ingenuity.

Conclusion

I really hope Java will be able to create a healthy, micro lib based community.
JitPack certainly makes this dream possible. I can’t see this community starting with it.

There is just one more problem I thing should be resolved before people will feel safe to go micro.
And that’s the classpath hell problem… npm/nodejs resolve this problem by not using a global require. Importing in nodejs is always relative to the requiring file.

So I will address this problematic issue next.
At the meantime, you can follow and contribute to my stackoverflow question.

← PreviousNext →