[MCOMPILER-605] Unused Parameters in Maven Compiler Plugin

[jira-importer]

Chen Zhang opened MCOMPILER-605 and commented

Hi ,

I’m a researcher specializing in software engineering, and I'm currently exploring configuration issues related to Maven, with a particular focus on the maven-compiler-plugin. I have some questions and observations I'd like to share, but I am not sure if this is the best place to post them. If not, I apologize in advance.

Recently, I studied the documentation of the maven-compiler-plugin and analyzed its usage across more than 3,000 projects. During this investigation, I noticed that several parameters—such as enablePreview, staleMillis, fileExtensions, showCompilationChanges, and skipMultiThreadWarning—are never utilized in these projects. This observation made me curious about the design rationale behind these parameters and their intended use cases. Are these parameters still relevant, or do you think their usefulness has diminished over time?

Moreover, considering that Maven provides an extensive range of plugins and configuration parameters, I wonder whether the abundance of parameters might become burdensome for users, especially when they have to familiarize themselves with so many settings. Have there been any discussions or considerations about potentially removing parameters that are rarely used?

---

No further details from MCOMPILER-605

[desruisseaux]

I agree that the rational for some parameters is a bit mysterious. Some of them have been deprecated in the Maven Compiler Plugin 4.x. See for example this comment. The problem is that after a plugin has been released with a parameter, we don't know if removing that parameter would break a lot of project. If a study on thousands of projects is available, this is a great information!