Some history

Studying for the Java Certification exam I was writing programs as I studied, and while learning about Reflections I wrote a short program I called ClassInfo.java, and I worked with it a while as I thought it was neat to be able to look up class information.

Eventually I got to the GUI sections and thought it'd be a good idea to put a viewer so I wrote ClassViewer.java, and wrote it as a JApplet with main functionality, which I think is just a good way to write applications, as then you can have them capable of acting as applets.

Well I did pass my Java Certification Programmer and went on to other work, but found that I was using my Class Viewer program regularly, and even tried to talk it up to other programmers who were just not that interested. I don't know how that works, but I think it's typical that when you get an idea, it's not so easy to just show it to people you work with, and expect them to adopt it. Or maybe that's just with me.

I tried to figure out various ways to get it out there, and tried talking to some people, but nothing happened. And I just kind of went on to other things.

Well over a year passed when I ended up in a discussion with someone talking about SourceForge, and nope, I hadn't heard of them before then, but this person had presented a project to them. Well it didn't take long before I figured I should check, so I checked and figured that it was just what I needed. So I immediately presented my Class Viewer program and it was accepted.

And that's how I ended up with my own open source project on SourceForge.

More later on what it's like plus some thoughts on what I see as the market for a class viewing program, plus some ideas for the future.


James Harris