Hi!
I'm very new to
Java and software development in general. I do, however, work for a software company. Due to recent contract issues, my workload has changed, which is how I found myself in the WWJ (that's Wonderful World of Java).
I recently took a Java course (taught by Mike DaConta, an author of several Java books and former employee of my company) and am reading as much on the subject as possible while working through tutorials and trying to understand the basics of programming in Java.
My real question relates to what I need to study and when to get some work done. I have been handed some software and been asked to "analyze" it. One package is BBN's OpenMap, an open-source Geographic Information System package written in Java. Another is a C-based package with a recently added Java interface. It uses InfoBus, so I assume that JavaBeans are in use somewhere.
While the tutorials and books I've seen help someone get up to speed, they don't really explain how to look at an application and tell what is going on. What kinds of things do I need to know to be able to figure out what someone else has written? As an aside, the two packages I've mentioned are about as different as can be with respect to documentation of code. One is open-source and well-documented, the other is not and not.
Any ideas greatly appreciated!!
Thanks,
Drew