Learning in public: Lessons from open source

This page summarizes the projects mentioned and recommended in the original post on dev.to

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  • dependency-analysis-gradle-plugin

    Gradle plugin for JVM projects written in Java, Kotlin, Groovy, or Scala; and Android projects written in Java or Kotlin. Provides advice for managing dependencies and other applied plugins

  • A little more than two years ago, in October 2019, I began work on my first significant open source project, the Dependency Analysis Gradle Plugin. I had just left a job where I had done relatively little coding, was taking a month off, and wanted to get back into a building mode and learn some new things. I decided to explore the domain of unused-dependency detection. The nearest competitor I was aware of was the Gradle Lint Plugin from the Netflix Nebula collection. However, as that plugin has never supported Android projects, that meant I had an exploitable niche—if only I could exploit it.

  • algs4

    Algorithms in C# ported from the book "Algorithms 4th Edition".

  • In truth, I had very little idea of what I was doing. While I had significant experience with Gradle scripting, I knew hardly anything about what was involved in writing complex plugins. Of the tools I would ultimately need to learn to build something useful (581 ⭐s and counting!)—bytecode analysis with asm, source code parsing with antlr, graph theory and analysis (thanks, Algorithms, 4th Edition!), just for starters—I can say that I knew these things were possible, but I had never attempted to use any of those tools or theories in practice, let alone integrate them into a coherent whole.

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  • gradle-lint-plugin

    A pluggable and configurable linter tool for identifying and reporting on patterns of misuse or deprecations in Gradle scripts.

  • A little more than two years ago, in October 2019, I began work on my first significant open source project, the Dependency Analysis Gradle Plugin. I had just left a job where I had done relatively little coding, was taking a month off, and wanted to get back into a building mode and learn some new things. I decided to explore the domain of unused-dependency detection. The nearest competitor I was aware of was the Gradle Lint Plugin from the Netflix Nebula collection. However, as that plugin has never supported Android projects, that meant I had an exploitable niche—if only I could exploit it.

NOTE: The number of mentions on this list indicates mentions on common posts plus user suggested alternatives. Hence, a higher number means a more popular project.

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