Build phases

One of the principal benefits of the Maven build tool is that it standardizes builds.

This is very useful for a large organization, since it won't need to invent its own build standards. Other build tools are usually much more lax regarding how to implement various build phases. The rigidity of Maven has its pros and cons. Sometimes, people who get started with Maven reminisce about the freedom that could be had with tools such as Ant.

You can implement these build phases with any tool, but it's harder to keep the habit going when the tool itself doesn't enforce the standard order: building, testing, and deploying.

We will examine testing in more detail in a later chapter, but we should note here that the testing phase is very important. The Continuous Integration server needs to be very good at catching errors, and automated testing is very important for achieving that goal.