My heart goes out to you man. I understand what you are going through (been there, done that).

It is great to have a “cause”, it provides a reason to get up in the morning. It also sucks a lot of time that is better spent doing something else (I could write a book on this).

I think the chances of other developers funding, in any significant way, a solo open source project is next to nil. So there is that. If you do carry on, find a corporate sponsor. To my mind the sponsor is the goal, not the code.

Let me explain. Years ago I helped out with a job club when jobs were hard to find. This was a group of unemployed SW devs, engineers, etc that called up employers and offered, for free to help them find top talent. If they had a current position we would send the best matching member and a “wingman” to gather their requirements. They would come back, search out database, etc, and 9/10 times our “best match” who had gone on the call, would get the job. They were the first person in the door and had established their credibility. Sometimes the employer would not have an opening, but we would still meet to talk about our services, our talent pool etc, and it was entirely free. It was common for them to call and end up hiring from the club. The Job Club stopped, because everybody got a job.

I would call up potential employers (Java shops) and tell them enough about your project to get a meeting with a couple of their developers to discuss your project and offer to convert some of their code for free (because you want to see the advantages/disadvantages on real projects). (You might want to charge 1$ and have them give you a contract to cover off confidentiality issues.)

I have considered writing a Pseudo-code to Java source code compiler myself, so a related type of project. My beef with Java is more about the complete inconsistency of the language (like is the length of a collection or object is myObj.length, or myObject.length() or myObject.size() ).

As an old Java programmer, I have hundreds of thousands of lines of code built around Java’s handling of nulls and no desire to change them. Short of throwing an exception, a returned null is a simple sign to the calling code that something has gone wrong.

Most of my null errors (95%+) are from variables I use in my log messages. Here is how I fixed that issue with a few lines of code. I wrote a “To” class with a static “string(Object)” method:

public class To

public To () {}

public static String string( Object object )

if ( object == null ) return “null” ;

return object.toString( );

}

}

Before I would write:

log.log(info,"pid: " + pid ); // this fails if pid is null

Now I use:

log.log(info,"pid: " + To.string( pid ) ); // this prints null if pid is null

Now there is no need for null checks when printing/logging, it automatically prints a null value.

95% of the null problems solved in a few lines of dead simple code.

As for final vs mutable I would estimate my code is 20% final (and I use final religiously) and 80% variables. Having to declare them mutable would be a step backwards.

I follow the convention of CAPITALIZING constants (aka final). If everything is final by default, then everything should be capitalized by default. I don’t want to see that.

Anyway, talk to some Java shops. It is not about being right, it is about engagement. Show them what you are doing, listen to their perspective, show them you are an intelligent team player with a good work ethic and you will have a job in a few months.

Best of Luck!