These guidelines help our many different Java projects and libraries to work together.

For easier collaboration, visibility, backup and version control, please create a repository at https://github.com/AKSW. Please only create a public repository if possible, as the number of private ones is limited.

Maven makes it easier to include dependencies and to let other people depend and work on your code.

Please take care, to solely use HTTPS in your repository URLs, to avoid https://maven.apache.org/docs/3.8.1/release-notes.html#cve-2021-26291 and similar future vulnerabilities.

Maven 3 pom.xml template (change the compiler source to your liking):

<project xmlns="https://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="https://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemalocation="https://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 https://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelversion>4.0.0</modelversion>
    <groupid>org.aksw.projectname</groupid>
    <artifactid>projectname</artifactid>
    <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>

    <properties>
            <maven.compiler.source>1.8</maven.compiler.source>
            <maven.compiler.target>1.8</maven.compiler.target>
            <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
    </properties>
<!-- remove repositories you don't use-->
     <repositories>
            <repository>
                <id>maven.aksw.internal</id>
                <name>University Leipzig, AKSW Maven2 Repository</name>
                <url>https://maven.aksw.org/repository/internal</url>
            </repository>
            <repository>
                <id>maven.aksw.snapshots</id>
                <name>University Leipzig, AKSW Maven2 Repository</name>
                <url>https://maven.aksw.org/repository/snapshots</url>
            </repository>
            <repository>
                <id>UK</id>
                <name>UK Central</name>
                <url>https://uk.maven.org/maven2</url>
            </repository>
        </repositories>

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupid>junit</groupid>
            <artifactid>junit</artifactid>
            <version>4.12</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupid>org.slf4j</groupid>
            <artifactid>slf4j-log4j12</artifactid>
            <version>1.7.13</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupid>org.slf4j</groupid>
            <artifactid>slf4j-api</artifactid>
            <version>1.7.13</version>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
</project>

If you have a stable project, create a release (non-snapshot) version, as it decrease network traffic and increase speed tremendously.

SLF4j is a collection of interfaces for logger abstraction and offers bridges, which makes it easier to handle libraries with different logging frameworks.

Please always use UTF-8 encoding. Line endings will usually handled by git so that you can choose those as you prefer.

For general (not AKSW-specific) guidelines, see http://www.javapractices.com/home/HomeAction.do and https://github.com/cxxr/better-java.