September 01, 2002

Show me the code!

I’m trying to make a Java data serialization process use XML rather than flatfiles, and the JAXB specification sounded cool. I skimmed through 60+ pages of the user’s guide before it dawned on me that there was no SYNOPSIS-like section that had the pieces, compilation steps and brief usage so I could see whether this damned thing was useful or not. Irritating! I think this is a skill that open source folks develop from necessity, otherwise they’d be fielding questions all day long.

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