Raven是一个利用Rake和Gem来编译Java工程的构建工具。和Maven一样，它可以为你的工程处理依赖关系，指定Rake任务等等，这一切都基于Ruby...

为什么要用基于Ruby的一套工具来编译你的Java工程? Ruby本身是脚本语言，比之Java，更适合被写在Makefile里面(Rakefile)做这些事情，脚本语言的宿命就是做这些utils的事情，用Java来做，你不觉得有点像高射炮轰蚊子吗？还不一定轰的下来。Gem是Ruby的包管理系统，你可以把它想象成debian的apt或者Redhat的rpm，总之你可以用它很方便的获得和管理你想要的工具，库，等等。

也许1年之后，各种版本的Java教科书上都写着，“在你学习Java之前，请先准备好这些工具，jdk 1.x.x, Ruby 1.x.x, Raven 1.x.x ...”

lol

Here is what Raven will allow you to do:

• Your jar files are wrapped in a Ruby Gem (a package). You can then start manage your java jar library just like a Gem library. Tools are provided to convert a Maven jar repository to a Gem repository (both local on your machine or on a public server) or to directly install packages.
• Your dependencies are declared in a Rakefile. You basically say which Gems you need (and so which jars will be included in your classpath) for building. When building, if some Gems are missing, they are automatically installed in your local Gem repository, just like Maven.
• Raven gives you a small library of Rake tasks that you can use to compile your java classes, build a jar file, build a war file, produce javadoc, wrap the jar you built in a Gem, etc.
• This effectively gives you everything you need to build Java projects, using Gems for dependencies management and Rake for scripts.

This latest release introduces simple package installation:

raven install httpclient
raven install -g xstream xstream:1.2
raven install --all -g axis2

Check it out here:

http://raven.rubyforge.org/