Mailing-List: contact tomcat-dev-help@jakarta.apache.org; run by ezmlm
From: cmanolache@yahoo.com
Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2000 15:10:29 -0800 (PST)
To: "'tomcat-dev@jakarta.apache.org'" <tomcat-dev@jakarta.apache.org>
Subject: RE: Tomcat 4.0 Milestone 4
In-Reply-To: <5E5BF8E44723D4119B6D00508BCC219A0202B457@mail1.hq.portera.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.21.0011031454380.4676-100000@costin>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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> Costin,
> I believe there would be (or at least SHOULD be! :) many more contributors
> to these projects (Tomcat), but maybe some of us are intimidated by the
> level of apparent expertise required for this stuff. (Then again, I know we
> have some damn good people on these lists.) I am curious, is this the case?
> Have you all been writing java apps for years and are steeped in C++ and OOP
> for the last decade? Do you have the servlet spec pasted on your wall?

I have probably more experience writing perl or setting up Linux than java
:-) 

And you don't need the full spec - only few pages are so confused that you
need them pasted on the walls.


> How can I, a perl hacker and aspiring java coder get involved? (How do you
> guys know what to do?) At what point would I be considered to be "good
> enough" to really contribute some code? 

Find something you don't like in tomcat ( or something you want tomcat to
do ) and fix it. It's a step-by-step process, and any contribution is a
step forward. 

In the worse case your code will brake something else, but that can be
fixed. 

The current tomcat3.3 has a very small core, and most of the functionality
is implemented in modules ( Interceptors ). In 90% of the cases you should
be able to implement any new features ( or change/fix tomcat ) by just
adding a new interceptor or replacing an existing one.
The interceptor doesn't even have to be part of the standard distribution
- you can just bundle it with tomcat or make it available ( but I can't
see any reason not to check it in, except maybe lack of time ).

Right now we are in a very bad need for contributors - there is so much
to be done, and so little time. There are so many areas where you can
improve the performance or add new features... As long as you learn
something from that, it'll be a big win for tomcat too.

Costin