The Open Source U

My plans for this site are not quite clear. I feel that I’ve got a very clear objective but the plan on how to achieve that objective is still a bit fuzzy.

As I describe in my about page my mission plan (for a lack of a better term) is:

Understand the design, architecture and implementation of certain major Open Source software for my personal and professional growth.

On this site, I do intend to walk though the dissection of certain open source software. Additionally, I’m going to walk though and explain by example certain design patterns as well as post example software.

Lately, my main focus has been software architecture. That is, how is software put together. This is as opposed to how certain functions work or operate. I’m looking at the high level of software design.

Head First Design Patterns Book Cover

I’m currently reading Head First Design Patterns. I love the book and this book is probably the main reason for my interest in overall software architecture. The architecture is something that I’ve not spent much time on in my career as I mostly put together software segments rather then the overall software.

Recently, I’ve become responsible to design the architecture of a existing project that is in terrible need of being re-done. I hope to learn things from the book and from the internet to help me in this effort.

As for the software dissection side of things, I’m thinking of starting with Firefox. In fact, I’ve actually started as I’ve always wanted to dissect Firefox; it intrigues me. A little bit ago, I posted a question on Stack Overflow titled: How Does FireFox Work? Source Code Walk Through?[^]

Check out the post for some of the responses I got. The one that is marked as the answer is what I’ve decided to follow.

I hope to start writing up my findings and understandings later this week. Though, with work my schedule can get dicey.