Is there an alternative syntax (or scripting language) to simplify Maven pom files?
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Our repository has several projects which have very large pom.xml files with many dependencies and plugin configurations in each.

Does there exist any way of specifying our pom.xml outside of the standard xml on the Maven website?

The closest solution I know of is to abuse inheritance and separate dependencies and plugin configuration into parent projects, but this can only take us so far.

When the pom file splitting for Maven 3 is [released][1] it will relieve some of the pain, but my preferred solution would be a scripting language which could do the following:

- specify dependencies as a single line instead of 5/6,
- allow for simple reuse of plugin configurations between projects, and
- be easily usable by new developers


  [1]: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2271082/is-it-possible-to-split-maven-pom-files