A visualization of the core concepts of the Java ecosystem.
When I got out of university and started working as a developer, I was overwhelmed by the ocean of information that makes up the Java ecosystem. One aspect I particularly struggled with (and still do occasionally), is that many pieces of it can only be understood in reference to other pieces and nobody seemed to be capable to give a simple, self-contained explanation of what their project does.
I'm talking basic things here - what's a build tool, what does continuous integration mean and how does it differ from continuous delivery? Whats JVM, JDK, JRE, JLS, and JIT and how do they relate? How do testing, mocking, and assertion frameworks play together? And so on and so forth ad infinitum.
Nowadays, I'm shaking my head. Isn't all that obvious? How could I not have made sense of these few concepts? But that's the thing: They're not complicated, just unapproachable. So my idea is to gather all these concepts (with a few specific instances, where helpful), write a short explanation for each (as self-contained as possible) and put them all into a large map.
This is that project (in very early stages).