The documentation for ROS is terrible.
One great irony is that the Groovy and ROSJava versions of ROS was created to allow developers on platforms like Windows to utilize the great robotics SDK, while all the installation instructions are still geared toward linux/ubuntu users.
The ROSJava core documentation says:
TODO: write a guide for a strictly java installation.
I've tried to follow the instructions here on the Google Code project, but seeing as all the instructions assume I'm running Ubuntu, it is very difficult as a traditional Windows/Web developer to translate into windows instructions on my own.
The link is also broken to the GIT repo, it is moved to github: https://github.com/rosjava/rosjava_core.git
If you were looking for rosws documentation, its here. Another broken link: http://www.ros.org/doc/independent/api/rosinstall/html/
Now, wanting a versatile IDE for coding, I chose Eclipse because it can handle Python, Java and c++. Now I have no idea how to build this project with Gradle and Maven-- Heck, I'm not even sure I should be building it.
Is there a definitive installation/build tutorial for ROSJava on Windows? If not, I think it would greatly benefit the community if somebody could create a walk-through that can help developers make their first "Hello World" in robotics. I've done some processing and some light Java before, but nothing too serious. The manual should assume you are new to Java, ROS and all the dependencies/build helpers/compilers. I feel like all the instructions from Google Code and ROSWiki assume you're familiar with many tools and dependencies or are aware of the historical context of ROSJava versus Groovy versus Linux implementations. Many of the necessary tools are off the beaten path for a C#.NET, Objective C or Javascript/Web developer.
Also, a big detriment is that the pre-compiled version of the ROS SDK is outright missing from ROSWiki. "Page Does Not Exist" so, us newcomers have to also install 10-16 dependencies for compiling the core (not to mention figuring out how to configure and use them).
Additionally, build scripts named in the Wiki don't even exist yet.
Currently, I've not even gotten far enough to start encountering problems like this: Gradle Eclipse Plugin