In a comment to my “Is the lack of Java adoption *still* the Achilles’ heel of IBM?” post, Charles Ross has an interesting comment (emphasis *not* mine).
“I tend to learn by stealing and modifying/refactoring code. This is one kind of reuse. Most of the Java examples you find in the Lotus venues (LDD, Notes help, Sandbox, magazines etc) are not object oriented – not even structured. You can actually find more Lotuscript object oriented samples than Java ones. And at least in LS, the use of Subroutines is common practice in the Lotus templates. That’s good stuff to steal.
That lack of Domino Java source examples is a sore point. One OO thing I worked with was I mapped the Headfirst design patterns Ducks classes (Strategy pattern example) into a Notes Library and agent. Not quite coding, but educational.
So what we need is some nice Domino application classes to steal, basically.”
Something to think about… Maybe it’s because code in Java is so convoluted and hard to read due to the way the program flow may not be obvious that it’s easier to post Java snippets than full “programs”. Maybe this means that the posted code doesn’t lend itself to easy “stealing”. Hmm…