Last year I first learned about Hacktoberfest where devs are encouraged to contribute into open-source projects. I managed to pass the challenge, although I spent a lot of time going through many projects from first class global tools (where I didn't see how to contribute) to totally meaningless "Hello, Worlds" (where I didn't see why to contribute).
In 2024, I am looking for struggle through this once again. But this time, I also wanted to place something on the other pan of the scale. I am working here and there on number of different side projects in my GitHub repo. Some of them will most likely die out before even being born, others are already in quite good shape, I'd say.
And then there are my Java Demos, the project I would like to point out and hopefully get some attention and help to make it bloom.
It originally started as a presentation for my work colleagues back in 2021 when Java 17 came out. I spent quite some time going through the changes being made since Java 9. I pointed out some of the most interesting features and prepared a collection of demos to show them in action. For the reference, the original state is more or less preserved here.
The presentation was a great success. And I felt I don't want to throw the resources away. My original goal was to keep up with the Java release cycle and update the demos regularly. Sometimes I was able to do so, like with Virtual threads demo, but most of the time I was falling behind, as there was always enough work in my actual job and even more side project ideas keeping me distracted, not talking about that daemon of procrastination, who is constantly whispering into my ear...
Cut. We're in late September 2024 now. JDK 23 was released few days ago, and I am playing with brand-new Markdown comments feature adding a new bit to my inconsistent set of Java demos. Suddenly, wild idea appears!
Why not to take part in this year's Hacktoberfest? Why not to open my efforts to broader public, welcome new contributors on board and try to uplift the project to a state I would probably never get it myself?
I believe there is a place for such comprehensive set of "all demos for all JEPs out there". Java is evolving fast and even experienced developers may find hard to keep up. In your work, you are often stuck with older versions (I am living 8 years with a project that is still Java 7!) and not everyone has time and will to watch the latest news. There is always a bunch of tutorial articles with every Java release, but only for the current set of new features. Do you know another project with everything in one place? I don't...
So here come Java Demos, Hacktoberfest-connected and eager to review and accept your PRs! The demo-like nature of the project makes it broadly available even for not so experienced Java programmers.
First, I would like to focus for the latest features starting with Java 23 and Java 22. But even if you are not yet familiar with them, there is still a lot of work to do on older stuff. So don't worry and suggest help with whatever you think you can do. When in doubt, feel free to ask! Either here or via the GitHub issues. Or contact me privately via my email.
I am looking forward to your contributions, both to see the project growing and also to learn new things myself. I am pretty sure I took couple of wrong turns on my developer's journey, therefore I hope I will never grow into that "too good to be corrected" mood.
Happy hacking together, fellow Devs!
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