Platform fixes, documentation updates and other small stuff

CONTRIBUTING.md

@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 
 White Rabbit and Rabbit in a Hat are structured as a Maven package. Contributions are welcome.
 
-While the software in the project can be executed with Java 8 (1.8), for development Java 17 is needed.
+While the software in the project can be executed with Java 8 (1.8), for development Java 17 (or higher, currently tested upto version 21) is needed.
 This has to do with test and verification dependencies that are not available in a version compatible with Java 8 .
 
 Please note that when using an IDE for development, source and target release must still be Java 8 (1.8) . This is enforced
@@ -14,11 +14,13 @@ To generate the files ready for distribution, run `mvn install`.
 
 When creating a pull request, please make sure the verification phase (`mvn verify`) does not fail.
 
+When contributing code, please make sure that `mvn verify` runs without errors. 
+
 ### Testing
 
 A number of unit and integration tests exist. The integration tests run only in the maven verification phase,
-(`mvn verify`) and depend on docker being available to the user running the verification. If docker is not available, the
-integration tests will fail.
+(`mvn verify`) and depend on Docker being available to the user running the verification. If Docker is not available, the
+integration tests will fail. 
 
 When adding test, please follow these conventions:
 
@@ -47,6 +49,12 @@ These are used for testing of the main White Rabbit and Rabbit in a Hat features
 | `riah_input`   | An example mapping file used to create the Rabbit in a Hat outputs.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      |
 | `riah_output`  | All export formats created by Rabbit in a Hat: as word, html, markdown, sql skeleton and the R TestFramework.<br> These are all generated from `riah_input/riah_mapping_example.gz`.                                                                                                                                                                     |
 
+### Database support
+
+If you are considering adding support for a new type of database, it is recommended to follow the pattern as used
+by the SnowflakeHandler class, which extends the StorageHandler interface. This way, the brand/database specific code
+is isolated into one class, instead of through the code paths that implement support for the 
+databases that were added earlier. This will lead to clearer code, that will also be easier to test and debug.
 
 ### Snowflake
 
@@ -68,4 +76,4 @@ and do not relate in any way to any production environment.
 The schema should not contain any tables when the test is started.
 
 It is possible to skip the Snowflake tests without failing the build by passing
-`-Dohdsi.org.whiterabbit.skip_snowflake_tests=1` to maven.
+`-Dohdsi.org.whiterabbit.skip_snowflake_tests=1` to maven.

README.md

@@ -44,7 +44,7 @@ Requires Java 1.8 or higher for running, and read access to the database to be s
 
 Dependencies
 ============
-For the distributable packages, the only requirement is Java 8. For building the package, Java 17 and Maven are needed.
+For the distributable packages, the only requirement is Java 8. For building the package, Java 17+ and Maven are needed.
 
 Getting Started
 ===============

docs/ReadMe.html

@@ -377,24 +377,14 @@
 
 <div id="white-rabbit-documentation-readme" class="section level1">
 <h1>White Rabbit Documentation Readme</h1>
-<p>This folder contains the raw (<code>.md</code>) and rendered
-(<code>.html</code>) documentation of WhiteRabbit. The documentation is
-renderd with the R package <code>rmarkdown</code> and used for the <a
-href="https://ohdsi.github.io/WhiteRabbit/">github.io page</a>.</p>
+<p>This folder contains the raw (<code>.md</code>) and rendered (<code>.html</code>) documentation of WhiteRabbit. The documentation is renderd with the R package <code>rmarkdown</code> and used for the <a href="https://ohdsi.github.io/WhiteRabbit/">github.io page</a>.</p>
 <div id="contribute" class="section level2">
 <h2>Contribute</h2>
-<p>Contributions to the documentation are very welcome and even a must
-when new features are implemented. To update the documentation, edit one
-of the following markdown files or create a new markdown file: - <a
-href="/docs/WhiteRabbit.md">WhiteRabbit.md</a> - <a
-href="/docs/RabbitInAHat.md">RabbitInAHat.md</a> - <a
-href="/docs/riah_test_framework.md">riah_test_framework.md</a> - <a
-href="/docs/best_practices.md">best_practices.md</a></p>
+<p>Contributions to the documentation are very welcome and even a must when new features are implemented. To update the documentation, edit one of the following markdown files or create a new markdown file: - <a href="/docs/WhiteRabbit.md">WhiteRabbit.md</a> - <a href="/docs/RabbitInAHat.md">RabbitInAHat.md</a> - <a href="/docs/riah_test_framework.md">riah_test_framework.md</a> - <a href="/docs/best_practices.md">best_practices.md</a></p>
 </div>
 <div id="render-html" class="section level2">
 <h2>Render html</h2>
-<p>To generate the site from markdown files, run the following R code
-with the <code>./docs</code> folder as working directory.</p>
+<p>To generate the site from markdown files, run the following R code with the <code>./docs</code> folder as working directory.</p>
 <pre class="r"><code>#devtools::install_github(&quot;ropenscilabs/icon&quot;)
 library(rmarkdown)
 rmarkdown::render_site()</code></pre>