Is that a quiz question? Okay here are some hints:
1) Is it some place on the world map or are we talking of a real person?
2) Is it a movie?
3) Is it a video / computer game?
4) Code name for a covert operation!
Hmmm, one more hint Brøderbund! Rings a bell now? I remember playing this detective game on a 8-bit Intel 8088 processor with 640kb RAM, and no HDD, yes we did have B&W CRT monitors, thank you! We had to boot up the system using 5 1/4 inch floppy disks and load a virtual drive in memory (thanks to HIMEM; to run games that ran slow when they were executed from floppy disks, and also to dim those grinding noises they made whenever we needed to move to the next level or save your game state). I used to love that game and would play it endlessly, till the new version of Prince Of Persia came along, another one of the wonders from Brøderbund Software! By the way take a look at what Carmen looks like, go to this link ;)!
Let’s say you ran a pretty neat operation, a central CVS system and gave access to folks (developers) who would commit to your repo now and then. It’s all happy-go-lucky when everyone behaves and everything goes as planned.
But when you wake up one morning and find your CI system coming to a grind-halt – throwing reds and oranges on the screen you would get shirty with anyone. Only later do you find out that this well-meant chap submitted a patch, and one of the classes broke the build. But how do you know what did it and who behind the what did it if you didn’t have some sort of a system?
You do know that by looking at the error message in the log (if you generate log files, if you even look at them and read them, lol), then pick up on the cause of the failure, say in this case it was a class, take that name and run it against a list of last contributors to your repo! Voila! That matches with a so-called Carmen Sandiego! So now you know what we were eluding to?
But where do we get such a program from and what about maintaining a database with a list of developers – lets not rant about it yet, we have a simple solution that could solve it – that’s where our good old “Java” comes in. Have a look at OpenJDK Tool github repo and you will find something of that sort. Have a look at the program requirements on the Adopt OpenJDK mailing list.
So you see we need to keep such tools in hand when you have to run a neat operation, so to seek out the operative who might be hiding behind emails and it would be moments before you got to the person! 😉 It would be interesting if you could do something like this:
$ openJDKProdTool -coActionEvent
and get the below response, with details of the contributor:
[20/09/2012 22:36:50,Carmen Sandiego,Carmen.Sandiego@gmail.com,java.awt.event.ActionEvent,fallthro,pending review,/javac/warnings/core/java/awt/event/, ActionEvent.java.patch]
BTW, if you think you might be able to hook up with Carmen Sandiego – you could try emailing her, but at your own peril 😉 !
Actually if you look closely in the example-scripts folder, you will find something that helps do it. You will need the necessary .jars and .txt files in the local folder for it to work.
It all started when I joined the OpenJDK initiative in 2011, and then came across two interesting techniques called TDD and BDD, and thought why not fuse all of them together to teach myself Java, TDD, and BDD and make a project out of it. And voila, months later we have a maven project on github with stories and scenarios (still learning how to do these, just scratched the surface, so to speak). I’m still a novice at these techniques and learning them as we go along, but very inspired and passionate about learning and using them as I write more code. Please feel free to correct or bring an improvement to anything you find does not look right – but please do also explain why, so that I can learn from it. If you are a TDD or JBehave buff or know how to guard functionalities with unit tests or fill the gaps in an application using TDD techniques I would love to hear from youu to learn those techniques.
Whilst we got busy with all this buzz, my intel tells me that there’s a “Hunt for Red October” on the loose – is it another one of those covert ops or is “Red October” a code name for someone or something. We won’t know till we find out! We know we are in November, so whats this thing about October – apologies for the delayed announcement but due to tactical reasons the news couldn’t be released in October, ;)! So you see we might have to do some time-travelling! lol! The time-machine comes handy when we have to roll-back to that specific configuration that worked for us!
Okay, okay I’ll let you out on the news, I was talking about @kittylyst’s OpenJDK initiative called the “OpenJDK Build&Test system”, you know I’m talking about Ben Evans right! You can read all about it at OpenJDK Build&Test system github repo, above all support him and us on this Adopt OpenJDK journey! It starts like this
Scope
It is envisaged that the ecosystem would enable a user of the system to make requests…
the rest can be found at the Scope.md document on the repo. We all need you, just as much we need Java!
Any constructive comments and feedback are always welcome! Thanks for reading and hope to see you join us and support our operations!
Communications & Awards
Adopt OpenJDK Mailing list
Adopt OpenJDK Github repo
IRC: #adoptopenjdk on irc.freenode.net channel using your favourite IRC client
Adopt OpenJDK wiki page
JavaOne 2012 Talks & Presentation (feedback)
LJC & Adopt OpenJDK win awards!Credits & Kudos
London Java Community meetup site (LJC)
London Java Community blog site
London Software Craftsmanship (LSCC)
The Adopt OpenJDK teamThanks to #LJC, #LSCC and the #AdoptOpenJDK team, without which I wouldn’t be able to do a lot of the things I can do now, some of the things I have benefitted from and for which I’m grateful:
Learn and develop my skills, learn about software techniques like TDD & BDD (thanks to @sandromancuso, @SamirTalwar & @londonswcraft, for organising those much-needed talks and hands-on sessions) and many other tiny but important things a developer should know.
Contribute to the Adopt OpenJDK project and learn and improve my “Java” skills – thanks to @karianna, @kittylyst, @bcrecworks (Barry) & @recworks (the whole team) for creating this opportunity for all of us and making continued efforts to move the initiative forward.
Others who helped me with the github project are @RichardWarburto (from the #adoptopenjdk team, thanks for your feedback and suggestions – I’m still working on them), Vaibhav Gowadia (thanks for reviewing my code, it looks much better now and I’m java-wiser after all the amendments 😉 ).
And to everyone else I must have missed out, where the credit is due, who has positively contributed and supported me.
Mani's fun & useful blogs 