I love Maven and have been what I'd call a power user for at least five years. However, the first time I heard of it (and tried it), I hated it. Until you get your head around the idea that you're describing "what" you're building rather than how to build it, you'll feel an impedance mismatch.
And I didn't begin to feel mastery with Maven until I started writing plug-ins. If you really want to understand your tool, then try extending it. I've never had issues with Maven builds missing files, etc. and I'm not really sure how that happens. On the other hand, the fact that the project structure is almost always the same from project to project lets me successfully dive into projects I've never touched.
But Maven can be complex, especially if you're not careful to segment your project into sub-projects and modules. There are parts that are best learned by working with someone who's already mastered the build system. In any case, I think make/autoconf are harder to grasp than Maven, and I've never hated it the way I do when I'm programming in XML (Ant).
And I didn't begin to feel mastery with Maven until I started writing plug-ins. If you really want to understand your tool, then try extending it. I've never had issues with Maven builds missing files, etc. and I'm not really sure how that happens. On the other hand, the fact that the project structure is almost always the same from project to project lets me successfully dive into projects I've never touched.
But Maven can be complex, especially if you're not careful to segment your project into sub-projects and modules. There are parts that are best learned by working with someone who's already mastered the build system. In any case, I think make/autoconf are harder to grasp than Maven, and I've never hated it the way I do when I'm programming in XML (Ant).