Friday, June 5, 2015

Code, Push, Deploy with JitPack

Recently, I released a Java connector for Appygram, available on GitHub in ready-to-use JAR format.  A useful library, for sure, but one glaring omission was the fact that it wasn't available via the popular means of Gradle or Maven.  That, for many, makes it not-so-useful.  Since, for now, I'm the only one working on this connector, having a publishing process that is fast and easy for me is important.

Enter JitPack.

JitPack (currently in Beta) is a package repository for GitHub that builds your GitHub projects on demand and publishes them, ready to download and use via the aforementioned popular means.

For me, this meant adding a pom.xml build file to my project, tagging my latest release, and pushing to GitHub.  Done.  Once I'm finished with my next round of coding and updates, I can do:

git commit
git push
git tag -a 1.0.3 -m "1.0.3"
git push origin 1.0.3

And now, my code is available to the JitPack package repository for everyone to use immediately.

If you're a developer looking for a fast and easy way to get your code available, try JitPack.  It's an interesting approach to skipping the build process and getting code assets available in a way that's easy for users, while being convenient to developers.  Tools like that are definitely gold!

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Carl Scott
Software Developer, Solertium Corporation
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