Actually, a bunch of em founded Gluecode, which IBM just bought for... what was the quote, "Under 100 Million." Not bad for half a dozen geeks writing open source.
Remember the "NDA Submission" discussion in the incubator recently which ended in a "handle it vase by case"? This is why. Target is the db project, and has been voted to be accepted there, so once it satisfies incubator, wheee =)
-BrianM
Scarily enough, MS Office running on Crossover works as well or better than MS Office v.X on OS X. I still prefer OS X, but Crossover works *really* well.
Eben Moglen (FSF lawyer) was specifically spoken with, in person, to confirm the FSF interpretation of GPL compatibility of ASL 2.0 and he confirmed that the FSF view is thatit is compatible. Anyone else can, or course, challenge this in court if they want, but at least the FSF thinks it is compatible =)
For what its worth there is one Mac in our organization. I have it, and I am the SysAdmin. Most of the workstations are Windows (mix of versions) a few are Redhat Linux, and the servers are a mix of Redhat Linux (app servers) and OpenBSD (IS systems).
I hear what you are saying, but think you are wrong. The biggest problem with gentoo is unseemly installation times. It could (and afaik, is) being automated much more than it is.
Once the system is up and running I have found that my gentoo boxes (at home) need far less work than my RedHat boxes (I am admin, and develop on, RedHat boxes forming the foundation of J2EE stuff for a living).
The time sink involved in setting up a Gentoo box is significant, and is a problem, but once up, it is easier to keep up to date than RedHat or SuSE. Their choice of what to make trunk is questionable sometimes (going from cutting edge over to bleeding edge in some areas, and lagging behind in others (Apache)), but it is kept up to date fully (no need to pray that the upgrade from RedHat 7.3 to 8.0 where you have been managing packages via Ximian RedCarpet (rc/rcd really) will give you a working system - portage does and will. Versions of it are really just installer versions or arbitrary release numbers.
All of that said, i definately don't, and won't, use it "at work" or would reccomend it for a mission-critical place in a genuinely critical enterprise. I will absolutely use it at home for my own development efforts, and will support it to get it to the point where I *can* reccomend it for important roles.
-Brian
ps: I hope you respond, I am curious to hear your opinions further
Interestingly enough, Gentoo's portage system has BitTorrent in it already if you want to play with it. Then again, if you are running Gentoo, I very much doubt you want to get RH 9.
Since AspectJ is getting some attention I figured i would point out some other AOP resources
MDSOC - Paper - Is basically IBM's take on AOP. It avoids creating Aspect Space and Object Space (what belongs in an aspect, what in an Object?) but is less mature than AspectJ
HyperJ - Home - IBM's Java language stuff supporting MDSOC
JAC - Home - Aspect oriented middleware for Java. I haven;t explored this one much, is on my todo list.
Aspect Browser - Home- A tool to help identify crosscutting concerns in Java (emacs!)
I have this book, and JSTL In Action and both of them are truly excellent books. The 11/10 rating is quite appropriate. I have been attempting to convince myself to buy the Manning Ant book as well - just for the documentation on all of the Ant extensions that it includes.
Additinally, Manning Press has experimented with releasing PDF versions of books (in read only if you use acroread or windows, but not otherwise) and this was how I first met their books. (The books were hosted over at The Server Side). Anyway, this was my first intro to Manning Press. I now look over their books before any other.
The think I like most about Manning books is that they are written for smart people who have clues. Many tech books feel the need to explain basic concepts of programming in every single one, Manning doesn't bother - they stick to the topic on hand, they write as if the audience has a clue, is intelligent, and has real work to get done.
The problem that this article points to is a byproduct of large scale software development primarily being an exercise in complexity management. Abstraction is the foremost tool available in order to reduce complexity.
In practice a person can keep track of between 4 and 11 different concepts at a time. The median lands around 5 or 6. If you want to do a self-experiment have someone write down a list of twenty words, then spend 30 seconds looking at them without using memnonic devices such as anagrams to memorize them then put the list away. After thirty more seconds write down as many as you can recall.
This rule applies equally when attempting to manage a piece of software - you can only really keep track of between 4 and 11 "things" at the same time, so the most common practice is to abstract away complexity - you reduce an array of characters terminated by a null characters and a set of functions designed to operate on that array to a String. You went from half a dozen functions, a group of data pieces, and a pointer to a single concept - freeing up slots to pay attention to something else.
The article is completely correct in its thesis that abstractions gloss over details and hide problems - they are designed to. Those details will stop you from being productive because the complexity in the project will rapidly outweigh your ability to pay attention to it.
This range of attention sneaks into quite a few places in software development:
Team sizes: teams of between four and ten people are generally the most productive - they, and the project manager can track who is doing what without gross context switching.
Object models: When designing a system there will generally be between four and eleven components (which might break into more at lower levels of abstraction). Look at most UML diagrams - they will have four to eleven items (unless they were autogenerated by Rose).
Methods on an object: When it is initially created an object will generally have between four and eleven methods - after that it is said to start to smell, and could stand to be decomposed into multiple objects.
Vacation Days in the US: Typoically between five and ten - management can think about that many at one time, any more and they cannot keep track of them all in their head so there are obviously too many;-)
Layers in the standard networking stack
Groups in a company
Directories off of/
other schemes exist for managing complexity, but abstraction is decided human - you don't open a door, rotate, sit down backwards, rotate again, bend legs, position your feet, extend left arm, grasp door, pull door shut, insert key in iginition, extend right arm above left shoulder, grasp seatbelt, etc... you start the car. Software development is no different.
There exist peopel that can track vast amounts of information in their heads at one time - look at Emacs - iirc RMS famously wrote it as he did because he could keep track of what everythign did, no one else can though. There also exist memnonic devices aside from abstraction for managing complexity - naming conventions, taxonomies, making notes, etc.
If you are using it for extranet type functionality and don't need customers to use it, and you have skills but no money, create your own certificate, set up a server to do authentications (it keeps private key and is used to issue new certs), and then add your own server as a root server on each of your company boxes.
FWIW: I use the internet extensively, and as a primary tool, for graduate level research in CS. The ACM Portal, Nature Archives, etc are the best things going.
Sure, there is a lot of crap out there, but there is a lot of high quality research as well.
As an ex-teacher, I have found this rant (not written by myself, i don't know the author) to be the most accurate listing of problems facing teachers - and as the parent to this mentions, it directly effects technology.
21st Century Teacher applicant addressing the school administration.
Let me see if I've got this right.
You want me to go into that room with all those kids and fill their every
waking moment with a love for learning. Not only that, I'm supposed to
instill a sense of pride in their ethnicity, behaviorally modify
disruptive behavior, observe them for signs of abuse and T-shirt messages.
I am to fight the war on drugs and sexually transmitted diseases, check
their backpacks for guns and raise their self-esteem. I'm to teach them
patriotism, good citizenship, sportsmanship and fair play, how and where
to register to vote, how to balance a checkbook and how to apply for a
job. I am to check their heads occasionally for lice, maintain a safe
environment, recognize signs of potential antisocial behavior, offer
advice, write letters of recommendation for student employment and
scholarships, encourage respect for the cultural diversity of others, and,
oh yeah, always make sure that I give the girls in my class 50 percent of
my attention. I'm required by my contract to be working on! my own time
summer and evenings at my own expense toward advance certification and a
master's degree; and after school, I am to attend committee and faculty
meetings and participate in staff development training to maintain my
employment status. I am to be a paragon of virtue larger than life, such
that my very presence will awe my students into being obedient and
respectful of authority. I am to pledge allegiance to supporting family
values, a return to the basics, and to my current administration.
I am to incorporate technology into the learning, and monitor all Web
sites while providing a personal relationship with each student. I am to
decide who might be potentially dangerous and/or liable to commit crimes
in school or who is possibly being abused, and I can be sent to jail for
not mentioning these suspicions. I am to make sure all students pass the
state and federally mandated testing and all classes, whether or not they
attend school on a regular basis or complete ! any of the work assigned.
Plus, I am expected to make sure that all of the students with handicaps
are guaranteed a free and equal education, regardless of their mental or
physical handicap.
I am to communicate frequently with each student's parent by letter,
phone, newsletter and grade card. I'm to do all of this with just a piece
of chalk,a computer, a few books, a bulletin board, a 45 minute
more-or-less plan time and a big smile, all on a starting salary that
qualifies my family for food stamps in many states.
Interoperability between the relatively simplistic IM protocols out there is bleeding easy. Heck, there is even a Blizzard battle.net to AIM gateway that has yet to release files, but I know for a fact works (just has a couple womping security holes keeping me from releasing files until I get a spare weekend or two).
As much as it sucks, certs aren't the answer. Speaking with a hea dhunter recently he did say companies care much more about certs now than they did a year ago - but that is because they can. There is a fairly large, experienced pool of talent out there.
Getting certs, however, is a very expensive proposition for osmeone currently unemployed. A typical test can now cost aroun $500, so accumulating a list of certs is not really an option.
Deciding WHAT you want to do is the first step. You might consider doing anything if the opportunity comes along, but in terms of getting certs you need ot focus more (unless you have more moneyt than you know what to do with, in which case why do you need a job so bad?). This means, yes, making a decision about your future. Youare free ot change it down the line, but you do have to choose - sysadmin/netadmin, development, dba, etc
After you figure what you want get experience doing it. The portfolio is becoming a tool of the unemployed developer. Showing first rate code that you have written, along with unit tests, use cases/user stories, UML diagrams etc make syou look better. Really, if you have littl eprofessional experience it is the best thing you can do to look good for a "walk in" interview.
Choose the direction you would like to steer and start a project, or get in on a starting project. Don't dive into an established open-source project. They might appreciate the help, but your goal here is to have somethign to show that YOU can claim 100% credit for. Comntributing bug fixes to gcc won't do that for you, though it might feel good.
The seoncd thing is become involved in the local development community. You might laugh, but this is possible. Hit Yahoo Group and search for any group in your area related for what you are doing. Make an emeail account that can accumulate spam, and sign up. Talk to people. Networking (people, not CCNA) is still the best way to find a job, period.
Only then, consider getting a cert or two. The ones I have seen being respected are the Sun Java developer certs (okay, JCP is sorta laughable, but the larger ones get nods), Cisco certs are respected, and Oracle certs are respected. Certs are no substitute for experience, unfortunately. Human resources may not realize this, but the hiring manager will.
FInally, find someone who IS a professional developer, who has undergone many code reviews, who knows how the system works in a decent shop and ask if they will review your code and designs. Buy them beer, coffee, crack, whatever it takes. When it comes down to the decision - your skill will determine your success. THis includes skill in talking the talk - and the only way to do that correctly is to really learn it. Most good developers are willing to help new people, it is flattering. There are various systems to try to make this easier via the net. In my experience these are not nearly as good as meeting someone via the aforementioned networking and offering to buy them a beer in exchange for picking their brain. While buying em a beer, slip in that you would really like if they could do somehting like a formal code review of your stuff - afterall, it is the only way to really improve.
Finally, read lots of code. Figure out how it works. Look at systems and make sur eyou understand em. A *great*, though boring as hell, way to do this is to write API docs for good projects. Do not contribute directly to them yet - your time is better spent building things you can claim redit for. Let's say you are into Java development, run by the Apache project and submit improved API docs. No one likes writing em, but to do it well you NEED to understand what the code does.
That, and know that you have my sympathies. The hiring market sucks right now.
-Frums
Antipatterns
on
Bitter Java
·
· Score: 5, Informative
The structure itself is devoted to uncovering antipatterns , a term Tate uses because it plays off the way that Sun offered Java patterns to help programmers use the new tools efficiently.
Actually, "antipattern" is an accepted term in the pattern commnunity for describing a bad process or design that on the surface looks like a good idea. If a Pattern is a good practice distilled from the experiences of many good develoeprs, then an antipattern is a "gotcha" thathas been distilled from experience common to many good developers. This book describes it, but th ename really has nothing to do with Sun's practice of describing things in terms of patterns.
400 MHz is to slow to run our client application, local instance of mid-tier server, and IDE simultaneously so you can debug the business logic effectively on the middle tier.
400mhz is fine for single-tier, desktop type application development in general, but is laughably slow for anything complex. Once you factor in build times it becomes absurd ot waste your (expensive) developer's time waiting on a slow cpu.
This becomes magnified when you start looking at Java development, which (hate ot break it to you on/.) represents a huge chunk of the multi-tier corporate development effort currently. Now you have a client (web browser, applet, or application), a servlet, tomcat, a Java IDE (go IDEA!) running at a minimum for debug purposes. Frequently you can add JProbe, SQLPlus or equivalent (we are talking corporate development, MySQl isn't gonna be considered for anythign n-tier in most cases, I have PostgreSQL used though), multiple web browsers (javadoc for your code, JDK javadoc + any "illicit" browsing;-), Notes/Other Heavy Email Client, and a very intrusive anti-virus program you desperately wish you could disable.
I'v enot read the book, but looking at the chapter headings they seem to have leftout one great tool for XP in Java - the various refactoring browsers that are now hitting stride for Java, including JRefactory, IDEA (my favorite IDE period), jFactor, and X-ref (for the Emacs lovers)
With the XP RefactorMercilessly principle, IDE support for for refactoring is a must on big projects. Custom writing a Perl, sed, or awk script to move a method from one class to another (in its argument list) is possible, having IDEA or another refactoring tool handle all the updates across 2000 changes in 700 files is a lot nicer.
Java for the desktop has been "proven" wrong in shrink wrap software, but for custom work it is actually a huge success.
Amongst other large companies, my (unnamed, large telecommunications/gis company) makes customized solutions for most of the biggest players in classic telephony, and scads of minor clec's, utility companies, etc. Our UI is all Java (some of the mid tier stuff is C, but the UI is straight Java). It works, it works quickly and well
The Reason that the Java UI in most program has problems is not so much a problem of Swing, but of people not reading the first thing (or paying attention if they did) about Java. Swing is written to have a seperate UI thread. Most people ignore this. They open a menu, and the menu is generated, actrions for the items in it are created, and then it is drawn. Then they select something and the UI hangs for a moment while the UI thread has to execute the action.
Watch the user interface closely in most well built applications and you will see the UI responds to an event faster than the event occurs because it is allowed its own thread. On a quick machine they seem simultaneous, but they are not. This become most pronounced in games, since games tend to push the performance envelope the farthest. Issue a command, and it will happen, eventually, but you are not stuck in a "command queued" type mode that is the effective thing that most poor UI designs (application not pretty pictures) with Swing do to the user. Good games provide audible feadback that the command was issued (to avoid the user issueing it 8 more times wondering why it doesna work) creating the illusion of snappier UI. It is a good illusion too.
Large applications do this too. Watch MS Office carefully sometime;-)
Swing has its defects. Capturing global key events is a terrible kludge; the "Windows Look and Feel" is hideous; efficient programming requires a seperate UI thread (though this is true in most any large desktop app, is just more pronounce din java); its use of AWT classes fairly liberally makes it feel krufty; it (this is really Java, not Swing) has too damn many forced-catch exceptions (let the bloody things bubble up and have valid state info!) but its greatest flaw is being very easy to develop in poorly. Sort oflike the applet problem mentioned earlier. Coding Swing UI's is far easier than Qt, MFC (shudder), ATL, etc in the Windoze environment (and to be honest, outside of Qt I have never used any *nix ui libraries, so dunno bout them, but point-of-fact *nixes they are 99% irrelevent if the application has a UI).
Slashdot Mirror
Interestingly enough, FreeBSD is in fact extremely popular with most of the httpd developers I know.
Actually, a bunch of em founded Gluecode, which IBM just bought for... what was the quote, "Under 100 Million." Not bad for half a dozen geeks writing open source.
Remember the "NDA Submission" discussion in the incubator recently which ended in a "handle it vase by case"? This is why. Target is the db project, and has been voted to be accepted there, so once it satisfies incubator, wheee =) -BrianM
Scarily enough, MS Office running on Crossover works as well or better than MS Office v.X on OS X. I still prefer OS X, but Crossover works *really* well.
Eben Moglen (FSF lawyer) was specifically spoken with, in person, to confirm the FSF interpretation of GPL compatibility of ASL 2.0 and he confirmed that the FSF view is thatit is compatible. Anyone else can, or course, challenge this in court if they want, but at least the FSF thinks it is compatible =)
Except that Python uses dynamic typing, not static typing. Variables are untyped but hold references to typed objects.
I admin a dozen domains professionally, and run a couple mail servers for volunteer orgs and all of them will get it.
-Brian
You're right, I skimmed and didna read. Sue me, this is /. =)
-Brian
The UI isn't spectacularly pretty, but it works well (though the CSS is broken in IE, oh well) and has all the needed functionality.
The Wish List
-Brian
For what its worth there is one Mac in our organization. I have it, and I am the SysAdmin. Most of the workstations are Windows (mix of versions) a few are Redhat Linux, and the servers are a mix of Redhat Linux (app servers) and OpenBSD (IS systems).
I hear what you are saying, but think you are wrong. The biggest problem with gentoo is unseemly installation times. It could (and afaik, is) being automated much more than it is.
Once the system is up and running I have found that my gentoo boxes (at home) need far less work than my RedHat boxes (I am admin, and develop on, RedHat boxes forming the foundation of J2EE stuff for a living).
The time sink involved in setting up a Gentoo box is significant, and is a problem, but once up, it is easier to keep up to date than RedHat or SuSE. Their choice of what to make trunk is questionable sometimes (going from cutting edge over to bleeding edge in some areas, and lagging behind in others (Apache)), but it is kept up to date fully (no need to pray that the upgrade from RedHat 7.3 to 8.0 where you have been managing packages via Ximian RedCarpet (rc/rcd really) will give you a working system - portage does and will. Versions of it are really just installer versions or arbitrary release numbers.
All of that said, i definately don't, and won't, use it "at work" or would reccomend it for a mission-critical place in a genuinely critical enterprise. I will absolutely use it at home for my own development efforts, and will support it to get it to the point where I *can* reccomend it for important roles.
-Brian
ps: I hope you respond, I am curious to hear your opinions further
Interestingly enough, Gentoo's portage system has BitTorrent in it already if you want to play with it. Then again, if you are running Gentoo, I very much doubt you want to get RH 9.
-Frums
Since AspectJ is getting some attention I figured i would point out some other AOP resources
I have this book, and JSTL In Action and both of them are truly excellent books. The 11/10 rating is quite appropriate. I have been attempting to convince myself to buy the Manning Ant book as well - just for the documentation on all of the Ant extensions that it includes.
Additinally, Manning Press has experimented with releasing PDF versions of books (in read only if you use acroread or windows, but not otherwise) and this was how I first met their books. (The books were hosted over at The Server Side). Anyway, this was my first intro to Manning Press. I now look over their books before any other.
The think I like most about Manning books is that they are written for smart people who have clues. Many tech books feel the need to explain basic concepts of programming in every single one, Manning doesn't bother - they stick to the topic on hand, they write as if the audience has a clue, is intelligent, and has real work to get done.
The problem that this article points to is a byproduct of large scale software development primarily being an exercise in complexity management. Abstraction is the foremost tool available in order to reduce complexity.
In practice a person can keep track of between 4 and 11 different concepts at a time. The median lands around 5 or 6. If you want to do a self-experiment have someone write down a list of twenty words, then spend 30 seconds looking at them without using memnonic devices such as anagrams to memorize them then put the list away. After thirty more seconds write down as many as you can recall.
This rule applies equally when attempting to manage a piece of software - you can only really keep track of between 4 and 11 "things" at the same time, so the most common practice is to abstract away complexity - you reduce an array of characters terminated by a null characters and a set of functions designed to operate on that array to a String. You went from half a dozen functions, a group of data pieces, and a pointer to a single concept - freeing up slots to pay attention to something else.
The article is completely correct in its thesis that abstractions gloss over details and hide problems - they are designed to. Those details will stop you from being productive because the complexity in the project will rapidly outweigh your ability to pay attention to it.
This range of attention sneaks into quite a few places in software development:
other schemes exist for managing complexity, but abstraction is decided human - you don't open a door, rotate, sit down backwards, rotate again, bend legs, position your feet, extend left arm, grasp door, pull door shut, insert key in iginition, extend right arm above left shoulder, grasp seatbelt, etc... you start the car. Software development is no different.
There exist peopel that can track vast amounts of information in their heads at one time - look at Emacs - iirc RMS famously wrote it as he did because he could keep track of what everythign did, no one else can though. There also exist memnonic devices aside from abstraction for managing complexity - naming conventions, taxonomies, making notes, etc.
-Frums
-Frums
Sure, there is a lot of crap out there, but there is a lot of high quality research as well.
21st Century Teacher applicant addressing the school administration. Let me see if I've got this right. You want me to go into that room with all those kids and fill their every waking moment with a love for learning. Not only that, I'm supposed to instill a sense of pride in their ethnicity, behaviorally modify disruptive behavior, observe them for signs of abuse and T-shirt messages. I am to fight the war on drugs and sexually transmitted diseases, check their backpacks for guns and raise their self-esteem. I'm to teach them patriotism, good citizenship, sportsmanship and fair play, how and where to register to vote, how to balance a checkbook and how to apply for a job. I am to check their heads occasionally for lice, maintain a safe environment, recognize signs of potential antisocial behavior, offer advice, write letters of recommendation for student employment and scholarships, encourage respect for the cultural diversity of others, and, oh yeah, always make sure that I give the girls in my class 50 percent of my attention. I'm required by my contract to be working on! my own time summer and evenings at my own expense toward advance certification and a master's degree; and after school, I am to attend committee and faculty meetings and participate in staff development training to maintain my employment status. I am to be a paragon of virtue larger than life, such that my very presence will awe my students into being obedient and respectful of authority. I am to pledge allegiance to supporting family values, a return to the basics, and to my current administration. I am to incorporate technology into the learning, and monitor all Web sites while providing a personal relationship with each student. I am to decide who might be potentially dangerous and/or liable to commit crimes in school or who is possibly being abused, and I can be sent to jail for not mentioning these suspicions. I am to make sure all students pass the state and federally mandated testing and all classes, whether or not they attend school on a regular basis or complete ! any of the work assigned. Plus, I am expected to make sure that all of the students with handicaps are guaranteed a free and equal education, regardless of their mental or physical handicap. I am to communicate frequently with each student's parent by letter, phone, newsletter and grade card. I'm to do all of this with just a piece of chalk,a computer, a few books, a bulletin board, a 45 minute more-or-less plan time and a big smile, all on a starting salary that qualifies my family for food stamps in many states.
-Frums
As much as it sucks, certs aren't the answer. Speaking with a hea dhunter recently he did say companies care much more about certs now than they did a year ago - but that is because they can. There is a fairly large, experienced pool of talent out there.
Getting certs, however, is a very expensive proposition for osmeone currently unemployed. A typical test can now cost aroun $500, so accumulating a list of certs is not really an option.
Deciding WHAT you want to do is the first step. You might consider doing anything if the opportunity comes along, but in terms of getting certs you need ot focus more (unless you have more moneyt than you know what to do with, in which case why do you need a job so bad?). This means, yes, making a decision about your future. Youare free ot change it down the line, but you do have to choose - sysadmin/netadmin, development, dba, etc
After you figure what you want get experience doing it. The portfolio is becoming a tool of the unemployed developer. Showing first rate code that you have written, along with unit tests, use cases/user stories, UML diagrams etc make syou look better. Really, if you have littl eprofessional experience it is the best thing you can do to look good for a "walk in" interview.
Choose the direction you would like to steer and start a project, or get in on a starting project. Don't dive into an established open-source project. They might appreciate the help, but your goal here is to have somethign to show that YOU can claim 100% credit for. Comntributing bug fixes to gcc won't do that for you, though it might feel good.
The seoncd thing is become involved in the local development community. You might laugh, but this is possible. Hit Yahoo Group and search for any group in your area related for what you are doing. Make an emeail account that can accumulate spam, and sign up. Talk to people. Networking (people, not CCNA) is still the best way to find a job, period.
Only then, consider getting a cert or two. The ones I have seen being respected are the Sun Java developer certs (okay, JCP is sorta laughable, but the larger ones get nods), Cisco certs are respected, and Oracle certs are respected. Certs are no substitute for experience, unfortunately. Human resources may not realize this, but the hiring manager will.
FInally, find someone who IS a professional developer, who has undergone many code reviews, who knows how the system works in a decent shop and ask if they will review your code and designs. Buy them beer, coffee, crack, whatever it takes. When it comes down to the decision - your skill will determine your success. THis includes skill in talking the talk - and the only way to do that correctly is to really learn it. Most good developers are willing to help new people, it is flattering. There are various systems to try to make this easier via the net. In my experience these are not nearly as good as meeting someone via the aforementioned networking and offering to buy them a beer in exchange for picking their brain. While buying em a beer, slip in that you would really like if they could do somehting like a formal code review of your stuff - afterall, it is the only way to really improve.
Finally, read lots of code. Figure out how it works. Look at systems and make sur eyou understand em. A *great*, though boring as hell, way to do this is to write API docs for good projects. Do not contribute directly to them yet - your time is better spent building things you can claim redit for. Let's say you are into Java development, run by the Apache project and submit improved API docs. No one likes writing em, but to do it well you NEED to understand what the code does.
That, and know that you have my sympathies. The hiring market sucks right now.
-Frums
Actually, "antipattern" is an accepted term in the pattern commnunity for describing a bad process or design that on the surface looks like a good idea. If a Pattern is a good practice distilled from the experiences of many good develoeprs, then an antipattern is a "gotcha" thathas been distilled from experience common to many good developers. This book describes it, but th ename really has nothing to do with Sun's practice of describing things in terms of patterns.
-Frums
400 MHz is to slow to run our client application, local instance of mid-tier server, and IDE simultaneously so you can debug the business logic effectively on the middle tier.
400mhz is fine for single-tier, desktop type application development in general, but is laughably slow for anything complex. Once you factor in build times it becomes absurd ot waste your (expensive) developer's time waiting on a slow cpu.
This becomes magnified when you start looking at Java development, which (hate ot break it to you on /.) represents a huge chunk of the multi-tier corporate development effort currently. Now you have a client (web browser, applet, or application), a servlet, tomcat, a Java IDE (go IDEA!) running at a minimum for debug purposes. Frequently you can add JProbe, SQLPlus or equivalent (we are talking corporate development, MySQl isn't gonna be considered for anythign n-tier in most cases, I have PostgreSQL used though), multiple web browsers (javadoc for your code, JDK javadoc + any "illicit" browsing ;-), Notes/Other Heavy Email Client, and a very intrusive anti-virus program you desperately wish you could disable.
-Frums
I'v enot read the book, but looking at the chapter headings they seem to have leftout one great tool for XP in Java - the various refactoring browsers that are now hitting stride for Java, including JRefactory, IDEA (my favorite IDE period), jFactor, and X-ref (for the Emacs lovers)
With the XP RefactorMercilessly principle, IDE support for for refactoring is a must on big projects. Custom writing a Perl, sed, or awk script to move a method from one class to another (in its argument list) is possible, having IDEA or another refactoring tool handle all the updates across 2000 changes in 700 files is a lot nicer.
-Frums
Yes, but as i don't want to accidentally slashdot it, give me an email. -Frums
Java for the desktop has been "proven" wrong in shrink wrap software, but for custom work it is actually a huge success.
Amongst other large companies, my (unnamed, large telecommunications/gis company) makes customized solutions for most of the biggest players in classic telephony, and scads of minor clec's, utility companies, etc. Our UI is all Java (some of the mid tier stuff is C, but the UI is straight Java). It works, it works quickly and well
The Reason that the Java UI in most program has problems is not so much a problem of Swing, but of people not reading the first thing (or paying attention if they did) about Java. Swing is written to have a seperate UI thread. Most people ignore this. They open a menu, and the menu is generated, actrions for the items in it are created, and then it is drawn. Then they select something and the UI hangs for a moment while the UI thread has to execute the action.
Watch the user interface closely in most well built applications and you will see the UI responds to an event faster than the event occurs because it is allowed its own thread. On a quick machine they seem simultaneous, but they are not. This become most pronounced in games, since games tend to push the performance envelope the farthest. Issue a command, and it will happen, eventually, but you are not stuck in a "command queued" type mode that is the effective thing that most poor UI designs (application not pretty pictures) with Swing do to the user. Good games provide audible feadback that the command was issued (to avoid the user issueing it 8 more times wondering why it doesna work) creating the illusion of snappier UI. It is a good illusion too.
Large applications do this too. Watch MS Office carefully sometime ;-)
Swing has its defects. Capturing global key events is a terrible kludge; the "Windows Look and Feel" is hideous; efficient programming requires a seperate UI thread (though this is true in most any large desktop app, is just more pronounce din java); its use of AWT classes fairly liberally makes it feel krufty; it (this is really Java, not Swing) has too damn many forced-catch exceptions (let the bloody things bubble up and have valid state info!) but its greatest flaw is being very easy to develop in poorly. Sort oflike the applet problem mentioned earlier. Coding Swing UI's is far easier than Qt, MFC (shudder), ATL, etc in the Windoze environment (and to be honest, outside of Qt I have never used any *nix ui libraries, so dunno bout them, but point-of-fact *nixes they are 99% irrelevent if the application has a UI).