Actually, yes it does have a thriving ecosystem. Java ME accounts for something like 90% of all games released for phones, not to mention a number of big-name, high-quality apps like Google Maps, Google Mail and Opera Mini.
This is the one thing that really annoyed me when I started using Java. It doesn't bother/affect me anymore, but still:
THE ONE FUNCTION THAT NEWBIES NEED TO USE MOST is completely wierd.
System.out.println() could be a lot better too.
Of course, for real programs you use just one main class and you use logging instead of console output.... But what about the newbies!? I got over it soon enough... But I still harbor a small grudge for the confusion caused me by my early days with Java...;-)
Funny, I always see IntelliJ as "heavyweight" and Eclipse as lightweight in comparison... maybe it depends on the machine. IntelliJ is quite cool and has more functions and keyboard shortcuts than anyone but the IntelliJ team themselves are capable of remembering, but as said, not free. If your employer happens to provide you with IntelliJ, go for it. Otherwise Eclipse will do you fine.
Anyway, it all comes down to how easily distracted you are. If you don't mind things popping up at you left and right, then IntelliJ or Eclipse is the way to go. In contrast to many accomplished C programmers that pride themselves on a bare-bones approach of vim/emacs thankyouverymuch, many accomplished Java programmers pride themselves on having mastered the sorts of IDEs that give you everything but the kitchen sink--and they really are more productive with them. However, at first they might be a little overwhelming. If you're the type that likes to not be distracted, then a free program like jEdit, or if you're on Windows, JCreator LE, will be a fine start.
According to this press release, "Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and NTT DOCOMO announced today their intent to unite Symbian OS(TM), S60, UIQ and MOAP(S) to create one open mobile software platform." So actually they're not just contributing the separate code bases but actively attempting to create a new unified platform:
It's ridiculous to suggest that everyone just "go start their own business". Not everyone has the managerial qualifications and financial resources to just go start their own company. Most people who are good at technical jobs are good at them because they don't have to deal with the distraction of managerial tasks. And vice versa. Meanwhile, the managers of the world would be nothing without the technical staff.
Your perspective sounds a lot like the old line thrown around here a lot "If you don't like Program X, go write it yourself." However, as has been explained again and again, not everyone has the resources to write the program themselves, because they're too busy doing whatever job it is the program is supposed to help them do.
People are specialized in their knowledge because their jobs require it, and the number of jobs requiring specialization is increasing all the time. That's the way the world works. To suggest that to make a halfway decent living, you not only have to have the technical skills *but also* the business skills *and* the financial means to start your own company--how do you propose that one achieves this? It's simply not an option for the vast majority.
Your statement that there's "too much whining about employees' rights" reads like a manifesto of "selfish capitalism", that all corporations exist to make their leaders rich, and for no other purpose. Thank goodness there are still plenty of people in the corporate world who think differently, who actually believe in making quality products and being decent human beings to their fellow workers (even those "below them"). Thankfully, companies whose leaders have these merits also tend to succeed more often, because better people will want to work there and the high-quality products produced will do better in the marketplace.
Re:This is the route all white countries are going
on
China's All-Seeing Eye
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· Score: 1
First of all, associating right-wing Israeli politics with all Jewish people the world over is simply moronic.
Second of all, is Rupert Murdoch a Jew? No, I didn't think so. Neither is Steve Jobs, who owns half of Disney. Neither are the vast majority of our lawmakers.
I know none of this will get through to you because you exhibit the sort of blind hatred that would make Hitler proud, but imagine you changed your argument to "the Whites" or "the Christians". I think you'd have a much easier time supporting your argument. Since they're not minorities, though, they're not up for the scapegoating game, are they?
Please, go back to your Neo-Nazi hate-website hole and stop sullying Slashdot with your fecal matter.
As long as the person is expecting their speech to be disturbed, and they can hear/feel the exact moment that the magnet is pulsing, the effect could be purely psychosomatic. They really need to test this on someone who's not expecting these effects. It may be ethically a bit strange, but it's the only true test.
Re:This is the route all white countries are going
on
China's All-Seeing Eye
·
· Score: 1
I'm Jewish, and I certainly don't feel like I'm a "master" laughing at this. It hurts me just as much as it hurts you.
Actually, most of the Jews I know have a rather liberal viewpoint and feel rather strongly about the importance of individual liberties.
Where do you get this crap? Where do you come from? I'd take it as a joke except that even it's just not funny...
>Well, give a good tool to them to deserve the "alien like" appearance/behaviour, they may use it. A tool in quality of Azureus 3.x or Limewire. They can look like OS X apps anyway.
They can look like OS X apps because they use Apple's implementation of Java.
Have you tried running any actual X11 apps on Mac OS X? There's no menu bar for individual apps at the top of the screen, the Mac OS X keyboard conventions are all broken, the resolution is all wierd.... It's almost as bad as running Windows/Linux apps in an emulator, just that there's not so much overhead.
Plus you've got to keep in mind that Apple users are some of the pickiest customers, especially when it comes to aesthetics. That's why for example the X11 version of OpenOffice never took off, and now there's (finally) a major effort underway for a full-Aqua port.
If Azureus and Limewire were to start requiring X11 exclusively, I guarantee their Mac market share would not hold up for long.
Java 6 on Windows is much prettier. The fact that it has proper font-antialiasing alone was more than enough reason for me to switch.
There's also one nice feature I found in the Java 6 APIs: sortable table columns!
But yeah, for the most part there's not all that much in there for the developer to get excited about.
Re:Putting resources where it makes the most sense
on
Java SE 6 For Mac OS X
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· Score: 1
Adobe never said that "they're not going to port". They said that the port to 64-bit will take two more iterations of the Creative Suite rather than just one.
I'll be interested to see if they actually tie into the Cocoa APIs directly or use a more cross-platform friendly solution such as Qt 4.
This is starting to get ridiculous. Over the last few weeks it has somehow become trendy on Slashdot to make ridiculous jabs at "Java". Not any specific aspect or technology of Java, just "Java". And not anything specific about it, not even the stupid parroting that it's "slow", just things like "it's an abomination" etc.
It's getting really old. At first it was stupidly amusing, now it's just stupid.
Java is a powerful, performant (by far moreso than the current batch of oh-so-trendy interpreted languages), cross-platform, *open-source* set of technologies. This suggests to me that it offers a lot to users of all platforms, especially open-source ones. In fact, it doesn't just suggest this to me. It does offer a lot to users of all platforms, and has been doing so for quite some time now. The fact that Slashdot has now become a playground for groundlessly insulting "Java" in the hopes of scoring a few mod points from the (as usual) hopelessly juvenile Slashdot moderators, makes me sad.
I know it's not trendy to bust into your acerbic sarcasm-filled world with my serious comment here. But somehow I doubt there are many people (aside from a few hard-core.NET missionaries) who would seriously want to see the downfall of Java anytime soon. Yet unfortunately, all you are doing by making these sorts of jokes is needlessly acting to divide a healthy open-source community and reduce enthusiasm for Java. There is a wide diversity of tools and technologies out there, all with unique advantages. Java is one of them. As someone who supports and uses Java, I'm getting sick and tired of standing by while Slashdot scheisters such as Mr Coward here hi-five each other every day for upping the Java-deprecation ante.
Go poke fun at BASIC or something. Leave Java alone.
Well, if it's a more stable platform you're looking for, you certainly won't find it in Silverlight, at least not in its current incarnation. Based on my experience browsing *Microsoft's own* Silverlight-based pages, the stability is terrible. Clicking a control often doesn't work properly or requires multiple clicks, the mouse pointer doesn't change when you hover over clickable controls, animations are slow and jerky, and the whole thing feels much less "dynamic" than most Flash sites I've been to, as if it's nothing more than an AJAX page with a few extra graphics thrown in.
This was not a discussion about "most programmers". This was my response to your comment that "computer scientists are not needed; all they do is hold up the development process" (paraphrased).
Also, my examples are not wrong. But nice try at attempting to make yourself look more knowledgeable.
On point 1, you are to an extent right, a bit of humility can't hurt.
On point 2: "The people that want strong leadership are the people who can't find their own way in the world; they are not 'great', they are what the Chinese call 'insignificant'." I don't think it's too much to ask for by wanting strong leadership. True, it can't hurt to be able to manage on your own in the absence of such leadership (in fact that might lead you to becoming such a leader yourself). However, if your leadership is incompetent and fails to coordinate the team, I doubt the job would stay satisfying for very long.
Ok, sorry for the above sarcastic comment, it's Slashdot here and I just couldn't resist.
I guess I am getting at something, though. I understand that since you have no official training maybe you've gotten fed up over the years with employers that emphasize that. But I think your whole deal with "don't ask me if I'm a team player" and "I'm very unorthodox" is not going to bring you too many brownie points when the time comes to actually, well, work with others.
You may be the best programmer in the world, but that's not the only key to success. Having some humility and respect for others, even if they have much more conservative values than your own, is also an important skill.
I used to think the same way as you. Programming is cool, algorithms are boring, I know how to program, so who cares? Then I took a course on algorithms that made me think differently. Mind you, it wasn't my favorite course by any means, and writing/analyzing such algorithms is far from my personal favorite activity, but that doesn't mean it's any less important.
Think about it this way (example taken straight from the course): You're writing a database application and you need a sort function that can handle sorting a list of 1 million numbers. So you take the most intuitive, naive route: insertion sort. Even on a *supercomputer* capable of 1000 million operations per second, the sort will take around 33 minutes. Whereas if you had used a merge-sort algorithm, even on a *normal PC* only capable of 10 million ops/sec the whole thing would take just 100 seconds.
Performance--as in time something takes to complete--is not something to take for granted; in many (read: the majority of) cases it's what makes or breaks the software in the marketplace and may prevent software from fulfilling a customer's requirements. This is especially true when it comes to algorithms, where there are often exponential increases in wait time involved if you pick the wrong algorithm. You may not find it interesting, you may think that "those silly computer scientists are holding the production up", but you need to face facts: algorithms are what makes the computing world go round. Everything from databases to media codecs to 3D graphics depends on efficient algorithms.
I'm actually rather shocked that you don't understand this, assuming you are actually someone with a formal education in a computer-related field.
I hadn't heard about that spill until now. But here are the stats:
"The chemical leak in Minot, North Dakota ended up killing one person. Approximately 330 were treated for immediate health problems and more than 1,000 people needed medical care for recurring illnesses in the next month."
Three mile island: "Although 25,000 people lived within five miles (8 km) of the site at the time of the accident,[2] no identifiable injuries due to radiation occurred, and a government report concluded that 'the projected number of excess fatal cancers due to the accident... is approximately one.'"
So, we've got 1 person dead in both cases. Many more people injured in Minot, clearly. BUT: We got lucky with 3 mile island. Just because no permanent health damage has been confirmed (legally, anyway), does not mean that we can draw conclusions about all nuclear reactors in the country being safe. And even if we could somehow make such a claim (which we can't), nuclear plants will always present targets for bombing. Now that's reassuring....
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, yes it does have a thriving ecosystem. Java ME accounts for something like 90% of all games released for phones, not to mention a number of big-name, high-quality apps like Google Maps, Google Mail and Opera Mini.
This may be the case, but what you *can* do is make sure that all of the publicly exposed methods are at least easy to use.
Thing is, every class written is in a way an API unto itself. So even if it's ugly inside, make sure it's easy to use outside.
Yes.
This is the one thing that really annoyed me when I started using Java. It doesn't bother/affect me anymore, but still:
THE ONE FUNCTION THAT NEWBIES NEED TO USE MOST is completely wierd.
System.out.println() could be a lot better too.
Of course, for real programs you use just one main class and you use logging instead of console output.... But what about the newbies!? ;-)
I got over it soon enough... But I still harbor a small grudge for the confusion caused me by my early days with Java...
Funny, I always see IntelliJ as "heavyweight" and Eclipse as lightweight in comparison... maybe it depends on the machine. IntelliJ is quite cool and has more functions and keyboard shortcuts than anyone but the IntelliJ team themselves are capable of remembering, but as said, not free. If your employer happens to provide you with IntelliJ, go for it. Otherwise Eclipse will do you fine.
Anyway, it all comes down to how easily distracted you are. If you don't mind things popping up at you left and right, then IntelliJ or Eclipse is the way to go. In contrast to many accomplished C programmers that pride themselves on a bare-bones approach of vim/emacs thankyouverymuch, many accomplished Java programmers pride themselves on having mastered the sorts of IDEs that give you everything but the kitchen sink--and they really are more productive with them. However, at first they might be a little overwhelming. If you're the type that likes to not be distracted, then a free program like jEdit, or if you're on Windows, JCreator LE, will be a fine start.
According to this press release, "Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and NTT DOCOMO announced today their intent to unite Symbian OS(TM), S60, UIQ and MOAP(S) to create one open mobile software platform." So actually they're not just contributing the separate code bases but actively attempting to create a new unified platform:
Thanks for the refreshingly optimistic viewpoint :). I'll check those websites out.
It's ridiculous to suggest that everyone just "go start their own business". Not everyone has the managerial qualifications and financial resources to just go start their own company. Most people who are good at technical jobs are good at them because they don't have to deal with the distraction of managerial tasks. And vice versa. Meanwhile, the managers of the world would be nothing without the technical staff.
Your perspective sounds a lot like the old line thrown around here a lot "If you don't like Program X, go write it yourself." However, as has been explained again and again, not everyone has the resources to write the program themselves, because they're too busy doing whatever job it is the program is supposed to help them do.
People are specialized in their knowledge because their jobs require it, and the number of jobs requiring specialization is increasing all the time. That's the way the world works. To suggest that to make a halfway decent living, you not only have to have the technical skills *but also* the business skills *and* the financial means to start your own company--how do you propose that one achieves this? It's simply not an option for the vast majority.
Your statement that there's "too much whining about employees' rights" reads like a manifesto of "selfish capitalism", that all corporations exist to make their leaders rich, and for no other purpose. Thank goodness there are still plenty of people in the corporate world who think differently, who actually believe in making quality products and being decent human beings to their fellow workers (even those "below them"). Thankfully, companies whose leaders have these merits also tend to succeed more often, because better people will want to work there and the high-quality products produced will do better in the marketplace.
First of all, associating right-wing Israeli politics with all Jewish people the world over is simply moronic.
Second of all, is Rupert Murdoch a Jew? No, I didn't think so. Neither is Steve Jobs, who owns half of Disney. Neither are the vast majority of our lawmakers.
I know none of this will get through to you because you exhibit the sort of blind hatred that would make Hitler proud, but imagine you changed your argument to "the Whites" or "the Christians". I think you'd have a much easier time supporting your argument. Since they're not minorities, though, they're not up for the scapegoating game, are they?
Please, go back to your Neo-Nazi hate-website hole and stop sullying Slashdot with your fecal matter.
As long as the person is expecting their speech to be disturbed, and they can hear/feel the exact moment that the magnet is pulsing, the effect could be purely psychosomatic. They really need to test this on someone who's not expecting these effects. It may be ethically a bit strange, but it's the only true test.
I'm Jewish, and I certainly don't feel like I'm a "master" laughing at this. It hurts me just as much as it hurts you.
Actually, most of the Jews I know have a rather liberal viewpoint and feel rather strongly about the importance of individual liberties.
Where do you get this crap? Where do you come from? I'd take it as a joke except that even it's just not funny...
>Well, give a good tool to them to deserve the "alien like" appearance/behaviour, they may use it. A tool in quality of Azureus 3.x or Limewire. They can look like OS X apps anyway.
They can look like OS X apps because they use Apple's implementation of Java.
Have you tried running any actual X11 apps on Mac OS X? There's no menu bar for individual apps at the top of the screen, the Mac OS X keyboard conventions are all broken, the resolution is all wierd.... It's almost as bad as running Windows/Linux apps in an emulator, just that there's not so much overhead.
Plus you've got to keep in mind that Apple users are some of the pickiest customers, especially when it comes to aesthetics. That's why for example the X11 version of OpenOffice never took off, and now there's (finally) a major effort underway for a full-Aqua port.
If Azureus and Limewire were to start requiring X11 exclusively, I guarantee their Mac market share would not hold up for long.
Java 6 on Windows is much prettier. The fact that it has proper font-antialiasing alone was more than enough reason for me to switch.
There's also one nice feature I found in the Java 6 APIs: sortable table columns!
But yeah, for the most part there's not all that much in there for the developer to get excited about.
Adobe never said that "they're not going to port". They said that the port to 64-bit will take two more iterations of the Creative Suite rather than just one.
I'll be interested to see if they actually tie into the Cocoa APIs directly or use a more cross-platform friendly solution such as Qt 4.
I agree that Sun should put out the Mac OS X Java distribution.
However, if you think any mainstream Mac user is going to want to run X11-based Java apps on their system, you must be insane.
This is starting to get ridiculous. Over the last few weeks it has somehow become trendy on Slashdot to make ridiculous jabs at "Java". Not any specific aspect or technology of Java, just "Java". And not anything specific about it, not even the stupid parroting that it's "slow", just things like "it's an abomination" etc.
.NET missionaries) who would seriously want to see the downfall of Java anytime soon. Yet unfortunately, all you are doing by making these sorts of jokes is needlessly acting to divide a healthy open-source community and reduce enthusiasm for Java. There is a wide diversity of tools and technologies out there, all with unique advantages. Java is one of them. As someone who supports and uses Java, I'm getting sick and tired of standing by while Slashdot scheisters such as Mr Coward here hi-five each other every day for upping the Java-deprecation ante.
It's getting really old. At first it was stupidly amusing, now it's just stupid.
Java is a powerful, performant (by far moreso than the current batch of oh-so-trendy interpreted languages), cross-platform, *open-source* set of technologies. This suggests to me that it offers a lot to users of all platforms, especially open-source ones. In fact, it doesn't just suggest this to me. It does offer a lot to users of all platforms, and has been doing so for quite some time now. The fact that Slashdot has now become a playground for groundlessly insulting "Java" in the hopes of scoring a few mod points from the (as usual) hopelessly juvenile Slashdot moderators, makes me sad.
I know it's not trendy to bust into your acerbic sarcasm-filled world with my serious comment here. But somehow I doubt there are many people (aside from a few hard-core
Go poke fun at BASIC or something. Leave Java alone.
Well, if it's a more stable platform you're looking for, you certainly won't find it in Silverlight, at least not in its current incarnation. Based on my experience browsing *Microsoft's own* Silverlight-based pages, the stability is terrible. Clicking a control often doesn't work properly or requires multiple clicks, the mouse pointer doesn't change when you hover over clickable controls, animations are slow and jerky, and the whole thing feels much less "dynamic" than most Flash sites I've been to, as if it's nothing more than an AJAX page with a few extra graphics thrown in.
This was not a discussion about "most programmers". This was my response to your comment that "computer scientists are not needed; all they do is hold up the development process" (paraphrased).
Also, my examples are not wrong. But nice try at attempting to make yourself look more knowledgeable.
The database was just an example. Nice way to turn a reasonable argument into a holy flame war against computer scientists.
On point 1, you are to an extent right, a bit of humility can't hurt.
On point 2: "The people that want strong leadership are the people who can't find their own way in the world; they are not 'great', they are what the Chinese call 'insignificant'."
I don't think it's too much to ask for by wanting strong leadership. True, it can't hurt to be able to manage on your own in the absence of such leadership (in fact that might lead you to becoming such a leader yourself). However, if your leadership is incompetent and fails to coordinate the team, I doubt the job would stay satisfying for very long.
Ok, sorry for the above sarcastic comment, it's Slashdot here and I just couldn't resist.
I guess I am getting at something, though. I understand that since you have no official training maybe you've gotten fed up over the years with employers that emphasize that. But I think your whole deal with "don't ask me if I'm a team player" and "I'm very unorthodox" is not going to bring you too many brownie points when the time comes to actually, well, work with others.
You may be the best programmer in the world, but that's not the only key to success. Having some humility and respect for others, even if they have much more conservative values than your own, is also an important skill.
I see that modesty is also one of your strengths.
I used to think the same way as you. Programming is cool, algorithms are boring, I know how to program, so who cares? Then I took a course on algorithms that made me think differently. Mind you, it wasn't my favorite course by any means, and writing/analyzing such algorithms is far from my personal favorite activity, but that doesn't mean it's any less important.
Think about it this way (example taken straight from the course): You're writing a database application and you need a sort function that can handle sorting a list of 1 million numbers. So you take the most intuitive, naive route: insertion sort. Even on a *supercomputer* capable of 1000 million operations per second, the sort will take around 33 minutes. Whereas if you had used a merge-sort algorithm, even on a *normal PC* only capable of 10 million ops/sec the whole thing would take just 100 seconds.
Performance--as in time something takes to complete--is not something to take for granted; in many (read: the majority of) cases it's what makes or breaks the software in the marketplace and may prevent software from fulfilling a customer's requirements. This is especially true when it comes to algorithms, where there are often exponential increases in wait time involved if you pick the wrong algorithm. You may not find it interesting, you may think that "those silly computer scientists are holding the production up", but you need to face facts: algorithms are what makes the computing world go round. Everything from databases to media codecs to 3D graphics depends on efficient algorithms.
I'm actually rather shocked that you don't understand this, assuming you are actually someone with a formal education in a computer-related field.
At that point, Mr. Ballmer picked up a chair and threw it across the room hitting a table in his office.
After seeing this I am not surprised.
Informative?!?!?!?!
I hadn't heard about that spill until now. But here are the stats: "The chemical leak in Minot, North Dakota ended up killing one person. Approximately 330 were treated for immediate health problems and more than 1,000 people needed medical care for recurring illnesses in the next month."
Three mile island: "Although 25,000 people lived within five miles (8 km) of the site at the time of the accident,[2] no identifiable injuries due to radiation occurred, and a government report concluded that 'the projected number of excess fatal cancers due to the accident... is approximately one.'"
So, we've got 1 person dead in both cases. Many more people injured in Minot, clearly. BUT: We got lucky with 3 mile island. Just because no permanent health damage has been confirmed (legally, anyway), does not mean that we can draw conclusions about all nuclear reactors in the country being safe. And even if we could somehow make such a claim (which we can't), nuclear plants will always present targets for bombing. Now that's reassuring....