My colleagues at work use an app written in
Java. They'd like it modified in various ways - to show yellow lines here, some extra image processing there, respond to some mouse events that are currently ignored, etc. All we have are .jar files, no source. I asked the software provider, but they said nothing about source.
Is it a reasonable idea take on this project, or should i join the next cattle drive out of town? How would i go about modifying this app? Is it possible to modify a .jar, or is that something extreme no sane person would consider? A bytecode disassembler? Figure out the interface to a class and write my own replacement .jar files?
I'm many years experienced at programming in C++, assembly, raw binary blinking LEDs, expert at number crunching, graphics programming and all, and don't mind digging around at a low level. But i'm no expert at Java yet, need a cheat sheet to write HelloWorld ;-)
BTW, i love this site! Great design, well organized, a pleasure to visit.