Source code reading

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Einar Buffer - 04 Nov 2005 12:37 GMT

Hi,

My apologies if this isn't the wrong place to ask this question. If so,
could someone please advise me to where I should be asking it? Thank you!

The question is: what open source Java project would you recommend for
reading some Java source code, as a learning experience? I don't have much
experience in reading other people's code, so the project should be of
limited size and complexity. Any and all suggestions are welcome!

Kind regards,
Einar

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"If it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't,
it ain't. That's logic" -- Lewis Carroll

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Einar Buffer - 04 Nov 2005 12:39 GMT

> Hi,
>
> My apologies if this isn't the wrong place to ask this question. If so,
> could someone please advise me to where I should be asking it? Thank you!

Uhm, correct that to 1) if this _is_ the wrong place or 2) if this isn't the
_right_ place. I ain't got no talent for doing no writing, it seems...

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Roedy Green - 04 Nov 2005 12:58 GMT

On Fri, 4 Nov 2005 12:37:26 +0100, "Einar Buffer"
<_ebuffer_@hotmail.com> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who
said :

>The question is: what open source Java project would you recommend for
>reading some Java source code, as a learning experience? I don't have much
>experience in reading other people's code, so the project should be of
>limited size and complexity. Any and all suggestions are welcome!

Presumably you have some experience in another language. If for
example you had written an SQL engine before in C, you might look for
an SQL implementation in Java since you already know roughly what the
code SHOULD be doing.

I think the trick is to find something where you already have a pretty
good idea of how the project works.

You are going to have to learn Ant anyway, so you might start there.

see http://mindprod.com/jgloss/ant.html

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Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.
http://mindprod.com Java custom programming, consulting and coaching.

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ChrisWSU - 04 Nov 2005 13:05 GMT

http://java.sun.com/developer/codesamples/index.html

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Roedy Green - 04 Nov 2005 13:15 GMT

On Fri, 4 Nov 2005 12:37:26 +0100, "Einar Buffer"
<_ebuffer_@hotmail.com> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who
said :

>The question is: what open source Java project would you recommend for
>reading some Java source code, as a learning experience?

there is the JDK. It would be very instructive to figure out how
Swing works for example, or ANY of the classes you are using.

I had a some poking around in the serialisation classes to satisfy a
curiosity itch the other day.

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Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.
http://mindprod.com Java custom programming, consulting and coaching.

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David N. Welton - 05 Nov 2005 08:53 GMT

> On Fri, 4 Nov 2005 12:37:26 +0100, "Einar Buffer"
> <_ebuffer_@hotmail.com> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
> I had a some poking around in the serialisation classes to satisfy a
> curiosity itch the other day.

This is probably unlikely to be very important for most people, however:

You want to be careful looking at the Sun code if might ever be
interested in helping out with "Free Java" projects like Apache's
Harmony, GNU Classpath, GCJ, Kaffe, etc. because you will be "tainted".

You can, OTOH, look at GNU Classpath all you want, and even use the code
in many cases. And they've arrived at 95% coverage of J2SE, last I
heard, so they're more than likely to have what you're interested in
looking at.

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David N. Welton
- http://www.dedasys.com/davidw/

Linux, Open Source Consulting
- http://www.dedasys.com/

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Thomas Hawtin - 05 Nov 2005 21:25 GMT

> You can, OTOH, look at GNU Classpath all you want, and even use the code
> in many cases. And they've arrived at 95% coverage of J2SE, last I
> heard, so they're more than likely to have what you're interested in
> looking at.

Why would looking at LGPL code taint you any less than looking at Sun's
disclosed source?

Tom Hawtin

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Unemployed English Java programmer
http://jroller.com/page/tackline/

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Chris Uppal - 04 Nov 2005 13:52 GMT

> The question is: what open source Java project would you recommend for
> reading some Java source code, as a learning experience? I don't have much
> experience in reading other people's code, so the project should be of
> limited size and complexity. Any and all suggestions are welcome!

XOM might be suitable, especially if you already know a bit about XML (so you
know the problem domain).

http://www.cafeconleche.org/XOM/

It might be too big for you at your current stage (although, since it uses lots
of small classes and lots of comments, it looks bigger and more complicated
than it really is). As far as I can see, it's well designed and cleanly
implemented.

-- chris

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Einar Buffer - 07 Nov 2005 14:08 GMT

I appreciate the interesting suggestions made so far. I will certainly take
a look at them all, and hopefully find something that I am able to
understand and learn from.

A bit more background on myself, just in case I'm lucky enough to receive
even more suggestions: I am a CS major, with three years experience coding
C# (business + data layer) after that. I have some knowledge of design
patterns, and would like to learn more.

Thanks,
Einar

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