I usually work with Eclipse and open a shell to run commands, typically build commands with Maven. Partly because I like to have a command shell open, next to the Eclipse IDE, partly because it simply works better for me than using shortcuts from the m2e plugin.

Issuing a Maven command is something like this:

mvn -T 4 clean install
mvn -T 4 initialize site
mvn initialize license:format

We need to do the initializing since we setup some build properties plugins (like the Maven Javadoc Plugin) use. Especially for new team members remembering this is an issue. So I first started to write some documentation in our team Wiki. Now it was easier to point team members to this page, but loosing time on typing the commands remained. Therefore we started to pass an alias script around so that we can type

i
s
l

instead. Good point, but going back to the team wiki page to remember the shortcut (we have some more aliases than the three presented in the example) was cumbersome. Therefore we added a help alias that shows the commands and a link to the team wiki page on the console:

PROMPT>h
 --- mvn
 i = mvn -T 4 clean install [args]
 s = mvn -T 4 initialize site [args]
 l = mvn initialize license:format [args]
 --- help
 h = This help.
 
For more information please refer to: 
http://intranet/team/aliases

While passing around the alias script worked at first, the editing of the Windows alias script proved to be somewhat cumbersome. You have to add the commands and the help text at two different places. Therefore we defined an XML format and let the scripts (even for different platforms) be generated.

If you want to learn more about our Maven plugin that generates alias scripts, please refer to Alias Maven Plugin. If you'd like to see an example how to use the plugin, have a look at config-smartics-alias.

But the story does not end here by introducing a new tool. As soon as the alias script was put to a SCM it catched momentum. Other team members added their aliases and shared them with the team.

Hello everyone!

We start to blog and are eager to learn more about it. The reason for us to start writing is that we want to share our ideas with other software developers on the internet. We hope that through this form of communication, we also have the opportunity to rethink about our view points.

We are mainly concerned with the topic of software developments and in this wide area especially with improving productivity (PAW) and producing high quality documentation (DAW). Our key competences are in the field of build management (especially Maven) and writing software with Java.

We are in the software project business, where we consult, design and code. We advice our clients and their software development teams in how to use agile techniques to get more productive, get happier customers and teams. We help to design software and also help with actual coding. The typical bandwidth of activities software architects are found in their natural habitat.

We strongly believe in open source. We use it and provide open source software back to the community. This blog is centered around our open source projects that reflect our thoughts on software development. We automate and build tools to make software development even more fun.

So there is plenty to do. Let's start.