Hi Stefan On 5/26/10 5:29 PM, Stefan Guggisberg wrote:
hi alberto,
[...]
while i really appreciate your academic interest in jackrabbit i don't agree with your assumption. a contributor typically focuses on a specific part of the code base (e.g. when (s)he encounters an issue or a missing feature). there's no need to have a in-depth knowledge of the entire code base.
Thank you for your feedback, that spots out an interesting topic. I completely agree with you that, in a well-modularized system, there is no need for the new developer to learn the details about the system's core: she can just focus on her module/part. For example, one that works on the internationalization (i18n) probably doesn't need to know things about GUI implementation. And probably one would like to start with simple tasks :) However, even with simple tasks, or with well-defined modules, there will be hotspots that should be known by the new developer. What's the most important class I should deal with, when working on internationalization? And, unfortunately, not all the systems are so well-modularized. So, our idea is to generalize the problem and tackle it from the point of view of a new developer that is willing to work on the system's core. This is a generalization that could help to find possible solutions about hotspots in smaller modules.
