Hi Tilman, Thanks for the information. That helped me a lot. I'll work accordingly.
On Wed, Apr 23, 2014 at 9:14 PM, John Hewson <j...@jahewson.com> wrote: > Great advice! > > -- John > >> On 23 Apr 2014, at 15:49, Tilman Hausherr <thaush...@t-online.de> wrote: >> >> Although I'm only mentoring Shaola, maybe some of it is useful for Dimuthu >> as well: >> >> From the mentors list: >> === >> We now are in the community bonding period [1] which lasts until May 19. >> During this period students should learn about your project, your release >> processes, the Apache Way, how we do things around here, interact with the >> community and close any knowledge gaps they might have. [1] >> http://googlesummerofcode.blogspot.com/2007/04/so-what-is-this-community-bonding-all.html >> === >> Here's a FAQ about Apache: >> https://www.apache.org/foundation/faq.html >> IMHO most important are "What is Apache about?" and "What is Apache not >> about?". (My personal addendum to that is "Apache is not like Wikipedia". If >> you've ever edited in wikipedia, you'll notice the difference after a few >> days) >> >> https://www.apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.html >> The roles are simpler than in that text, all committers here are PMC >> members, and the PMC chair (Andreas) is also ASF member. >> >> Only committers and above have write access to the official PDFBOX >> repository. So the best would be to set up a copy on an open source >> repository. >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_open-source_software_hosting_facilities >> >> We're trying to be transparent. So stuff that deals with the implementation >> of the project should probably be in the ticket. To see what I mean, have a >> look at https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/PDFBOX-615 and the related >> issues. PDFBOX-615 started with "I will be trying to add this functionality >> this week" but it became a huge effort by several people that ended 4 years >> later :-) See also John's remarks about my code. It annoyed me somewhat at >> the beginning, but at the end it resulted in much better code. >> >> Note that you can edit in JIRA. See an example here >> https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/PDFBOX-2039 >> i.e. you can modify previous posts. >> >> Stuff that deals with PDFBOX in general is best in this (publicly readable) >> mailing list. The advantage is that others might answer you (if they want) >> when I'm working, sleeping, or not on the internet for whatever reason. >> Stuff that deals with java, svn and maven - e-mail me if you don't get the >> answer within a few minutes from google or from stackoverflow, i.e. don't >> waste time searching. >> >> Using other libraries: this is OK as long as they have an Apache license or >> a compatible license (GPL is not). However we don't use many libraries, >> everything is already big, so if you want, ask first. (Sorry if you already >> mentioned a library, will reread your proposal again later) Of course it is >> always OK to temporary use whatever you want to just test a theory / >> strategy / algorithm. >> Using other code: the code should rather be your own, but you can use small >> excerpts from stackoverflow.com etc but indicate it in your code with a >> link. Always comment in the code if you were "inspired" by other peoples >> code or algorithms or research papers, just look at the existing shading >> code for how I did it. >> >> Don't forget the Apache header in new modules. >> >> Your code should work on JDK5, so that we can use it in the 1.8 version too. >> So don't use diamond operators, lambda expressions or even String.isEmpty(). >> >> IDE: I recommend netbeans but you're free to use your own. Just make sure >> that svn (and whatever the hoster will use) and maven are integrated in it, >> this will make your life easier. >> >> A personal recommendation from my student days in the 80ies: don't work all >> night. Such code was usually found to be poor/worthless after I had the much >> needed sleep. >> >> Andreas: correct me if I forgot something. >> >> Tilman >> -- Regards W.Dimuthu Upeksha Undergraduate Department of Computer Science And Engineering University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka