Ability to specify embedded Jetty version when calling it from maven plugin

This is not as simple as it looks. For example, the current embedded Jetty 6 implementation needs 17 other dependencies for it to work (and these are not all automatically brought in through the maven dependency management). What happens when the Jetty version is updated and the dependencies change or the versions of the dependencies change.

I don't like the way we have it right now where the dependencies and their versions are hard coded.

So we have two options:

1) try and keep a list of dependencies for each of the embedded Jetty versions (or version groups, ie 6.1.x). For these embedded servers, the version of the org.mortbay.jetty dependencies will be set via the version option, but the version of the other dependencies will be hardcoded. This makes it easy for the user, but introduces problems if the other Jetty versions don't agree with the other hardcoded dependencies.

or

2) don't hardcode anything and make the user list every dependency in the pom file and use those instead. This gives the user full control, but also means more work on the users part.

or both could be possible. Give the user the option to specify the jetty version and use option 1 (which makes it easy for the user), or allow the user to specify some other variable and then make them specify each dependency (which gives the user more control).

Probably the most robust and flexible way to solve it (at least as a take-one) is to let the user add the dependency themselves. This gives the user access to maven functionaity like includes/excludes etc.
It's also easiest to "implement"

One way we could do this is to provide a pom.xml for jetty that includes the correct dependencies.

ex. org.codehaus.cargo/jetty/6.1.5

We could publish this to some repository and keep it up-to-date, or use a maven ant task to install it implicitly in the local repository.

Users would be able to specify the version somewhere (like version). Anything custom, they can install locally like this:

org.codehaus.cargo/jetty/6.1.5-myproject

No big devil in the details. Cargo is already highly reliant on ant, and there http://maven.apache.org/ant-tasks/index.html api.

thoughts?

I think it will probably be something like

<configuration>
  <container>
    <containerId>jetty6x</containerId>
    <type>embedded</type>
    <properties>
      <jetty.version>6.1.7</jetty.version>
      <servlet-api.version>2.5</servlet-api.version>
    </properties>
  </container>
</configuration>

... with all usable properties documented somewhere.

My take on this is that any dynamic resolution is not really the Maven way. I'd say that option #2 listed in the beginning is the Maven way, although it means more configuration for the user.

Indeed, we'd need to have a solid documentation for this.

If no one wants it crucially, I would like to defer this functionality.

Deferring to version 1.2.0. If anyone desperately needs it, I guess we'll hear screams. I expect none, thought.