I am actually an open-source software author. I use literally dozens of open-source packages constantly. I have installed hundreds of them, since I have used Linux as my main desktop since 1994.
But in this day and age, the hours-to-get-up-and-running model doesn't compete well. With my package, you can theoretically look at the README and even with no technical knowledge you can install the program via the usual "configure; make; make test; make install" meme. I certainly had people complaining about ease of installation when I started, but that was 1996. After 1997 or so, my stuff could be installed by reading the README and doing what it said. I knew I was risking this discussion by ranting a bit. But I have now tried a number of different Java things over the past five years. Not a single one of them had the basic instructions to get the program running in one place. All assumed that you know Java and that you can find your way around jar and CLASSPATH files. To me this is why Java has not done well as a language for developing open-source packages. There is no culture of user-friendliness. You might as well place a sign out -- "non-developers not welcome". I just checked out what the main web page says, and nothing in the overview makes it seem like it is only a library. I wanted it to do simple interpretation of JavaScript for syntax checking and function testing purposes. Since the Rhino overview says it is a JavaScript interpreter, it would make sense that you could easily employ it for that basic function. I have been able to do so, now, but it is less than ideal in my environment, which is the Linux command shell and the vim editor. The command invocation to do a simple pipe STDIN to interpreter is 90 characters. (Yes, of course I can make a shell script to implement that. But it doesn't seem right that you don't install something in a bin.) On Sep 8, 3:39 pm, "David Parks" <[email protected]> wrote: > Emi, many people agree throughout the open source community that more > documentation is needed on a plethora of projects. I am sure that everyone > on this list who works with this very well respected product would agree > that such documentation as you suggest would be fantastic to have. > > This *is* an open project, for which a community of people come together to > develop, with tremendous thanks to the founders who spent uncountable hours > and days developing a tool that they provided free to the rest of us. > > I can only suggest that if you see something lacking that you offer > something small in return for what you receive. Take some notes as you learn > and provide some documentation that will help others who come after you. > > There are those people who specifically steer clear of open source software > because of similar diatribes. If all of this is a significant issue for you, > you might consider sticking closer to the fully supported commercial > software options. As they say, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch > (but personally I think open source projects like this come damn close). _______________________________________________ dev-tech-js-engine-rhino mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-tech-js-engine-rhino
