Implement Java Exercises

[exercism]

Implement Java Exercises

[sit]

Woohoo! 👏

I really need to get this launched.

[kytrinyx]

I've created a proper config file so that it's easier to launch new language tracks.

The file is config.json, and the two most interesting features right now are:

• "active": false (the API knows about the Java track but will not serve exercises until this is true)
• "problems", which is the list of exercises that the API will serve up, listed roughly in order of increasing difficulty.

These are the problems we have so far:

anagram
assignments
bob
etl
grade-school
hamming
meetup
nucleotide-count
phone-number
robot-name
word-count

This is enough to launch the track, provided that we can have someone around who knows enough Java to help nitpick.

I can ping the peeps at ThoughtWorks, since they do a bunch of Java, and expressed interest in the project.

[spudone]

I just found out about this project; have extensive Java dev background and can help nitpick if needed.

[kytrinyx]

Fabulous. We have enough problems to kick it off. Do you want to take responsibility for bringing in a handful of extra people who can help out with the nitpicking up front?

[virtuoushub]

Hi, I also recently found out about this project, know a bit about Java, and would like to help nitpick. I do not think I can bring in extra people to help out with the nitpicking upfront, however I will do my best.

[kytrinyx]

Cool, I would ideally like to have 3 or 4 people committed to helping with the nitpicking up front.

[virtuoushub]

@kytrinyx, what is the best way for me to get started?

[kytrinyx]

As soon as we launch (like I said -- I still need more people to commit to it) then the best way to get started would be to solve the first few java problems yourself, and then check the list of pending exercises once a day or so to give feedback to people who have submitted solutions.

[virtuoushub]

Understood. Did you ping ThoughtWorks about help with nitpicking?

[kytrinyx]

I didn't, and I should! I've added it to my todo list to do as soon as I get home from this trip.

[virtuoushub]

Hi @kytrinyx, when are you back from your trip?

I got my development environment stood up and started solving some Java problems locally.

[kytrinyx]

I'm back now. Going to process my TODO list this weekend.

[kytrinyx]

I've pinged them.

[hrj]

My team is very interested in this. We are planning to mentor a few students through the exercism platform, and Java is our poison of choice at present. I would be happy to nitpick Java submissions once in a while (but no serious commitments).

One thing though; Some of the Java tests are pulling in third-party dependencies. IIRC there are dependencies on Guava, joda-time and on some JUnit extension. From a cursory look, the dependencies don't seem to be all that necessary.

• Guava: only the immutable map is used, and it doesn't seem necessary.
• joda-time: Java 8 has revamped support for date-time in the standard library.
• JUnit extension: I am not sure about this one. Perhaps there are some JUnit facilities that could be used instead.

In the interest of beginners, it would be great if these dependencies can be avoided, since they are an additional burden to understand. Our team would be happy to submit PRs with fewer dependencies if that is fine with you all.

Thanks,
HRJ

[kytrinyx]

I am very supportive of pull requests that reduce third party dependencies.

[kytrinyx]

@hrj did you have a chance to talk to your team about possibly simplifying the test dependencies here?

[kytrinyx]

We have a new process that you can use to find exercises to implement.
You can read all about it here.

I'm closing this issue in favor of the process described in the Contributing guide linked to above.

Thanks!