I signed up on the NetBeans mailing list (nbusers) last month because I had some questions. I've since posted many questions and every time someone comes to the rescue within hours. Often it's a Sun employee; usually the actual architects and programmers who make NetBeans! They have been so helpful, and take the time to explain answers to a JSF newbie like me. Sometimes they provide source code, helpful links and most recently a patch to fix a bug in the IDE that I found. I make sure to do as much research and testing as possible before asking questions so that I'm not a nuisance. I'm really impressed; especially since it's free. I wonder if they are paid to keep an eye on the mailing list and to help?
I noticed the Sun employees who help me the most are the architects of Visual Web Pack, and a co-creator of the JSF spec. I read on one of their blogs that as an architect they spend a lot of time talking with the community to find out how people are using the technologies, where they are having trouble with it and what they like or don't like. This helps them make improvements in future versions.
Working from his home office in Toronto,
Ryan de Laplante can be found developing software in
Java by day, and obsessing with technology by night.
Ryan has been designing and writing software for
IJW since 1998 and is very passionate about his work.
