Why am I using artifacts in IntelliJ IDEA?

Question

I just recently moved from Intellij 7 to 9, and I was confused about the idea of ​​“Artifacts” in IDEA.

I usually create unassembled web applications in a directory called / build under one of my modules. The build is controlled by the ant file - I run the ant object itself (either a quick update of the jsp files, or a quick compilation, or a full clean compilation), and then deploy the Tomcat instance.

So, what is the internal concept of the artifact for my process. Could this speed up the development process?

Answer 1

I am sure he can; see related blog entries: one and two .

Answer 2

From https://www.jetbrains.com/idea/help/artifact.html

In conclusion, artifacts allow you to combine compiled source code, associated libraries, metadata and resources (text, images, etc.) in deployable units. These may include compilation results for more than one module, as well as facet resources, such as deployment descriptors and other configuration files. In addition, artifacts may include other artifacts.