Best practices writing custom Java programs deployed on Debian

[Jacob Anawalt <jlanawalt@gmail.com>]

Hello,

I'm exploring writing some custom programs in Java that will be
deployed on Debian stable systems and I am reaching out for some
advice on best practices.

At the moment I am dipping my toe into the Maven waters. I've worked
through their getting started guides and have read all I can find
under Java at the Debian Wiki.

I'm not ready to jump into making everything we create into a local
Debian package, but I would like to take advantage of the security net
for things like DSA 3065-1 libxml-security-java so that if I am using
that jar and the server gets the security update, my program has the
updated jar available.

At first I came across /usr/share/maven-repo and explored using that
as a "remote" repository via file access, update policy always, and
checksum policy ignore for version "debian" of my dependencies that
were available in Debian. This seemed like a good start, but when
Maven copied the jars to ~/.m2 I thought it wasn't quite what I was
looking for.

Then I learned more about the Maven dependency scopes of provided and
system and wondered if that wasn't a better way of using the Debian
packaged jars.

I realize the most integrated way would be to package my code as well
and use the package manager's dependency management system, but I am
not ready to go that far.

Is there a write-up about best practices developing custom local Java
programs on Debian systems? I tried searching the mailing list for
maven-repo and dependency scope but didn't find anything.

Please CC me in reply, I'm not on subscribed to this list.

Thank you,
-- 
Jacob