JavaExercism/POLICIES.md

Track Policies

This document:

• describes all current track-wide policies; and
• lists all policies that should be reviewed in response to any given track event.

Maintainers should refer to this document each time they review a pull request.

Our policies are not set-in-stone. They represent directions chosen at a point in time with the information/context available at that time. We actively encourage contributors to review and critique them. If you have read through the references that informed an existing policy and still feel it should be improved or removed, please comment and describe:

1. your alternative perspective;
2. your proposed changes; and
3. how your proposal balances your own perspective with those already raised during prior discussions.

Event Checklist

Track Event	Policies to review
Exercise added	Prefer instance methods; Starter implementations; Ignore noninitial tests
Exercise updated	Ignore noninitial tests; Multiple file submissions
Track order changed	Starter implementations; Multiple file submissions
New issue observed in track	Good first patches
"Good first patch" issue completed	Good first patches
Installing Java instructions updated	Simple onboarding

Policy Descriptions

Prefer instance methods

Most (all?) exercises should be implemented in the form of instance methods since they contain "domain logic" and we (Exercism) want to encourage exemplary software.

References: [1]

Starter implementations

• Exercises 1-10: provide stubs for all required methods. Stubs should include the following body: throw new UnsupportedOperationException("Delete this statement and provide your own implementation.");
• Exercises 11-20: provide stubs for all methods required by the first test; comment-out the bodies of any tests that require non-stubbed methods. Stubs should include the following body: throw new UnsupportedOperationException("Delete this statement and provide your own implementation.");
• Exercises 21+: provide no stubs, but mention any "interesting" interface aspects in the HINT.md file (which gets merged into the README.md for the exercise).

References: [1]

Ignore noninitial tests

All but the first test in an exercise test suite should be annotated @Ignore("Remove to run test") (single test) or @Ignore("Remove to run tests") (parametrized test).

References: [1]

Multiple file submissions

The first exercise in the track whose test suite mandates multiple solution files should be accompanied by a HINT.md file reminding the practitioner that the CLI supports multiple file submissions.

References: [1]

Good first patches

Aim to keep 10-20 small and straightforward issues open at eny given time. Identify any such issues by applying the "Good first patch" label.

References: [1]

Simple onboarding

The Installing Java instructions should seek to minimize the number of steps and the number of concepts a new-to-the-track practitioner needs to learn to get to coding.

References: [1]