Ivy 2.0 Manages Dependencies in Java Projects

Jan 26, 2009

Anika Kehrer

Apache Ivy version 2.0, a dependency manager that works together with the Apache Ant Java build system, is the first major release in two years.

Since Ivy 1.0, developers have been enhancing its compatibility with the Maven project management tool by rewriting the project object model (POM) parser. The Apache Maven project manager reads data out of the project's pom.xml file. During the course of the almost two years of alpha and beta testing, developers also enhanced relative path handling and cache management. The Ivy 2.0 downloads are available as tar and zip archives here.

Ivy, originally from Jayasoft, became a subproject of Apache Ant in October 2007. Ant is a make tool accessory for Java code that works on Java classes and XML-based configuration data instead of shell commands. The build tool was originally a part of Tomcat for creating Java containers. Later Ant became a subproject of Jakarta in that it was recognized as applicable for other Java projects as well, and has meanwhile become its own Apache project.

The Apache Foundation currently has around 70 projects, including the Harmony Java SE and Geronimo runtime framework (both of which use Java Enterprise Edition 5). Also included among the projects is the Tomcat servlet container that the Apache Foundation promotes as an open source implementation of Sun's Java specification. (Apache had questioned Sun's open source politics in this regard back in April 2007.)

A streaming video of the keynotes at the ApacheCon conference last November in New Orleans organized by the Apache Software Foundation is available free from Linux Magazine.

Comments

Ivy is beyond terrible

rjw
Don't use ivy. Its just a mess, and it is useless.

If you are hellbent on using a dependency manager, use Maven, as at least someone else has used it and it has vaguely existant docs. If you just want to get your work done, use a lib directory, its a hell of a lot easier.