title: Webapp file organization convention (development structure)
body: <p>For the webapps I'm developing, I usually use the following files organization, since I think it respects the convention:</p>
  
  <pre class="lang-none prettyprint-override"><code>src
  |-- main
      |-- resources
      |   |-- *.properties
      |   |-- *.xml
      |   |-- spring
      |       |-- applicationContext.xml (main application context config file)
      |-- webapp
          |-- WEB-INF
              |-- spring
              |   |-- spring-mvc.xml (web application context config file, delegated to manage only the web part)
              |   |-- spring-security-http.xml (web security config)
              |-- static
              |   |-- *.css
              |   |-- *.js
              |-- views
              |   |-- *.jsp
              |-- web.xml (deployment configuration)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>What I would like to try, is to organize my files according to the following structure:</p>
  
  <pre class="lang-none prettyprint-override"><code>src
  |-- main
      |-- resources
      |   |-- *.properties
      |   |-- *.xml
      |   |-- web.xml
      |   |-- spring
      |       |-- applicationContext.xml
      |       |-- spring-mvc.xml
      |       |-- spring-security-http.xml
      |-- webapp
          |-- WEB-INF
              |-- static
              |   |-- *.css
              |   |-- *.js
              |-- views
                  |-- *.jsp
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Of course, when packaging the webapp, the files will be relocated where they have to (e.g. the web.xml file within the WEB-INF folder). The reason why I would like to reorganize my webapps as above, is that I find it more convenient to have all the *.xml config files in the same location, instead of having some here and some there. Is it a bad idea in your opinion to break my initial structure? If yes why? Why is it so important to have all the web config files within the WEB-INF folder?</p>
  
  <p>PS: technically, I know how to well link all the files within the classpath of the webapp. The question is more about convention and feedbacks from personal/professional experiences.</p>