Gitpod: Maven

[JesterOrNot]

add java maven extension to gitpod workspace

[jankeromnes]

Thanks for the suggestion! I believe you're talking about https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-maven/releases

Out of curiosity, have you already tried it in a Java repository? Did it work well? 🙂

[JesterOrNot]

here is a repo sorry for the delayed response https://github.com/JesterOrNot/Gitpod-Maven

[jankeromnes]

Cool, thanks a lot @JesterOrNot!

I see that it adds this widget in the bottom left:

However, I'm not quite sure how it works / what it's supposed to do. If you have time, could you please include a demo Maven project in the repository, so that we can see the extension in action?

[JesterOrNot]

See it in action:
https://www.loom.com/share/3c04a55a982e41f5b8210953211a6d9e

[jankeromnes]

Wow, I missed the + button. Really cool stuff! Thank you @JesterOrNot for setting up the Maven demo repository and walking me through how to use the Maven VS Code extension.

I think this should totally be mentioned in https://github.com/gitpod-io/website/blob/master/src/docs/java_in_gitpod.md cc @svenefftinge.

[JesterOrNot]

Should this be added to the default image given Maven's popularity?

[jankeromnes]

That's a good question. I agree that Maven is quite popular, however it may be confusing to developers of every other programming language to see a "Maven" section on Gitpod.

Maybe it should be installed in Gitpod's default Java example repo? https://github.com/gitpod-io/spring-petclinic

[JesterOrNot]

We could make a different build for the docker image in which it is installed and the FROM statement would go something like: FROM gitpod/workspace-full:maven and that image would have maven and maybe some other build tools available and then just talk about it in the docs

[svenefftinge]

We need to reduce the amount of default extensions to a minimum so let's not add it. Also Gradle is another popular build system for Java. But we could include a detection/suggestion in the setup assistant.

I think this should totally be mentioned in https://github.com/gitpod-io/website/blob/master/src/docs/java_in_gitpod.md cc @svenefftinge.

please do :-)