The latest articles on DEV Community by ScholarAJ (@scholaraj_efb24aac79). https://dev.to/scholaraj_efb24aac79 https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F4201300%2Fdac88120-4929-4133-a0fb-f75275e13cdf.png https://dev.to/scholaraj_efb24aac79 en ScholarAJ Fri, 23 Oct 2026 15:07:23 +0000 https://dev.to/scholaraj_efb24aac79/installation-headaches-2okl https://dev.to/scholaraj_efb24aac79/installation-headaches-2okl <p>So I've had a good bit of trouble learning build tools for programming lately. Like, a lot of trouble. Maven's been giving me a tough time with its strict directory structure and it took me quite a while to figure out why the nested folders went so deep. Seems a bit unnecessary to me compared to NPM's directory structure, which is far less redundant.</p> <p>In addition, just yesterday I had trouble understanding how to add JUnit as a dependency to an existing project (a calculator app I've been coding for the past few weeks). I opened quite a few tutorials trying to figure out why the class I created wasn't running with VSCode's Java testing extension, only to find out later many of them were outdated. </p> <p>I did figure out the problem this morning, and I finally got my code to run, but I'm curious if anyone else has had similar experience learning build tools. I'm definitely a newbie when it comes to software development, and I'm just coding some independent projects to gain experience. If anybody has any tips to avoid frustrations in the future, I'd certainly appreciate them. </p> programming beginners java softwaredevelopment