97 Things Every Java Programmer Should Know

Chapter 62. Open Source Projects Aren’t Magic

Jenn Strater

One of my biggest pet peeves is hearing people say that X technology, language, build tool, etc., works by magic. If that project is open source, then what I hear is “I’m too lazy to look up how it works,” and I’m reminded of Clarke’s Third Law that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”¹

In the days of the modern web, it is easier than ever before to look up the reference guides and source code and find out how that technology works. Many open source projects like the Apache Groovy programming language, for example, have a website (in this case, groovy-lang.org) that lists where you can find the documentation, reference guides, bug tracker, and even links to the source code itself.

If you’re looking for help getting started, guides and tutorials are a great place to begin. If you are more of a visual or hands-on learner, many online learning platforms offer introductory courses for learning new languages through labs, exercises, and group work. Sometimes these are even freely available so that the technologies will be more widely known.

After learning the basic syntax and data structures and starting to use them in your own projects, you’ll likely start encountering unexpected behaviors or even bugs. No matter which ecosystem you choose, this will happen at some point. It’s just a part ...