Re: [m2e-users] Where are "extra" POM views

[Steve Cohen <scohen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 09/24/2011 11:28 AM, Jason van Zyl wrote:
> The graph made a huge mess

that may be so.  I started a thread here several months abput how I was 
getting too many out-of-memory errors when using Eclipse.  Perhaps this 
guy was the cause.

and doesn't actually help you see anything.

Here, I must beg to differ.  The graphical view DID on several occasions 
help me to see AT A GLANCE where dependency conflicts were occurring, 
While it's true that there were other ways to see that information, the 
ability to see it at a glance was worth something.  Picture worth 10000 
words, etc.
> Look at the Dependency Hierarchy view, that shows you the tree to see where dependencies are coming from and the result of creating a list from the resultant graph. A graphical form of this that made operations faster could be useful. The existing graphical view truly does nothing that the Dependency Hierarchy view doesn't do in a way more effective way. I think if you play around with it for a few minutes you'll see it's the view that can actually help you.

I have taken a look at the Dependency Hierarchy view.  I would agree 
that it is possible to see the same information there, although perhaps 
less quickly.  One nice thing about the graphical view was that it 
showed dependency conflicts very graphically.  I think, if I remember 
correctly, that the dependency hierarchy view did the same, although I 
can't tell now because I used the graphical view to get rid of all such 
problems in my projects

Some people may not have liked the graphical view because its initial 
form mushed everything together in a way that was not helpful,  But I 
learned to drag the dependencies of interest off to one side, which was 
quite easy to do, and see clearly what was happening.  As you say, a 
graphical form of the view which created an on-the-fly graphic of the 
selected section of the dependency hierarchy might be as useful, if not 
moreso, but that doesn't exist yet and I will continue to miss the 
graphical view.

Different people have different ways of assimilating information in 
their minds.  I imagine that Maven developers whose whole business is 
understanding dependency graphs in depth might have a different view of 
the matter than Maven users, who might not need quite the same level of 
understanding of dependencies in general.  The user point of view should 
not be so easily disregarded, IMHO.