macOS Java or C++

[gekko513]

You're crazy. The two times I've used it both took me about 4 hours to correctly get things to line up/display right. Having to set the weightx to 1 sometimes and 0 others and having things resize on their own when clicked..ugh. I hate it.

It does take some time to get used to GridBagLayout, but once you do it's a very convenient layout manager. The best one I've tried. I haven't tried that Lisp stuff that cube talked about.

It definitely beats static layout, BorderLayout and the primitive layout capabilities of Interface Builder for Cocoa.

 

[cube]

I googled around for it and their home page seems to have not been updated since the late 90s. I'm thinking I won't bother.

I told you they had no more funding. After that some open sourcerers took it and created OpenAmulet, which looks to be included in debian, but it doesn't seem to have gone very far.

 

[zimv20]

What is an ORB vendor?

ORB = Object Request Broker

it allows processes on different machines, written in different languages and running on different platforms, to talk to each other (make calls, exchange information). the interface is written in a simple language called IDL (interface definition language), which is then compiled on the target machine, in the target language, into client and server stubs. those stubs are compiled and linked in.

the ORB itself is a running process that brokers the communication across machines and processes (clients and servers can run on the same machine, fwiw).

neat stuff. on project #1, i set up a CORBA service to provide project data to legacy projects in the firm, helping them make the leap from batchfile processing to, well, the 20th century

this was in addition to the plethora of CORBA services we implemented for our project.

(I'm a hard realtime embedded systems guy, not a server guy.)

like my first job. mostly C, but sometimes you just gotta program in assembly.

Interesting story about your server projects. When you talk about a trading app did you mean stocks?

i can't go into much detail, but basically yes, both projects were in the financial industry.

as a sidenote to #2, this was a project i joined about a year and a half after it had been going. i had to undo some design damage, and about a year later we had most of it in place, performance issues aside.

this was just as EJB was coming into being, so we brought in a vendor to demonstrate their stuff. another developer and myself spent less than two weeks, using EJB, to duplicate almost the entire server tier the team had spent 2 1/2 years coding. kind of a morale killer, actually. in the end, management decided not to go w/ EJB, with which i disagreed. i thought it was a great timesaver.

 

[darkwing]

ORB = Object Request Broker

it allows processes on different machines, written in different languages and running on different platforms, to talk to each other (make calls, exchange information). the interface is written in a simple language called IDL (interface definition language), which is then compiled on the target machine, in the target language, into client and server stubs. those stubs are compiled and linked in.

the ORB itself is a running process that brokers the communication across machines and processes (clients and servers can run on the same machine, fwiw).

So this is sort of like Java's RMI stuff, right? We had to learn RMI in a class I took with a professor who just loves Java and he mentioned CORBA had replaced it.

like my first job. mostly C, but sometimes you just gotta program in assembly.

Yep. Assembly is fun. I've had to do a boot loader or two.

this was just as EJB was coming into being, so we brought in a vendor to demonstrate their stuff. another developer and myself spent less than two weeks, using EJB, to duplicate almost the entire server tier the team had spent 2 1/2 years coding. kind of a morale killer, actually. in the end, management decided not to go w/ EJB, with which i disagreed. i thought it was a great timesaver.

They have made this decision for the reason you said..morale killer. How will people feel if the piece of junk they spent all that time on was replaced in 2 and 1/2 weeks? Still, I would have gone with the timesaver. Maybe management felt the time spent on the first one meant more people understood it and it had had more time for testing?

It does take some time to get used to GridBagLayout, but once you do it's a very convenient layout manager. The best one I've tried. I haven't tried that Lisp stuff that cube talked about.

It definitely beats static layout, BorderLayout and the primitive layout capabilities of Interface Builder for Cocoa.

I find Cocoa to be much better layout wise than Java, but that's because I get the IB. I prefer to handle things with pixels anyway. Let me put my stuff where I want to put it.

Cocoa does have some bugs though. Some of the stuff I've done with constraints to window resizing will get misplaced or stuck in some shrunken state. Maybe that's my fault and not Cocoa's, but it isn't as intuitive as I'd like.

 

[gekko513]

I find Cocoa to be much better layout wise than Java, but that's because I get the IB. I prefer to handle things with pixels anyway. Let me put my stuff where I want to put it.

Cocoa does have some bugs though. Some of the stuff I've done with constraints to window resizing will get misplaced or stuck in some shrunken state. Maybe that's my fault and not Cocoa's, but it isn't as intuitive as I'd like.

But then you could just use null-layout in Java and GridBagLayout isn't valid as one of your anti-Java arguments.

 

[cube]

in the end, management decided not to go w/ EJB, with which i disagreed.

For a look at how EJB blows read "Expert One-on-One J2EE Development without EJB".

Today it can only be advised if you really need the failover, replication, distribution features of the container.

So this is sort of like Java's RMI stuff, right? We had to learn RMI in a class I took with a professor who just loves Java and he mentioned CORBA had replaced it.

RMI is only for Java. CORBA is for any language to any language.

What is replacing CORBA is web services (SOAP, yuck!)

 

[therevolution]

What?! GridBagLayout is gods gift to the programmer!

Totally.

I am actually not a fan of it myself, but it has its uses. I often find myself using BorderLayout for real simple things, and BoxLayout (something about the way my mind works loves the nested boxes concept) or TableLayout (not a standard Java class, but free to use as you please) for more complex things.

 

[jtalerico]

Has anyone worked with C#? I find it to be almost like java.. But is it not a variation of C? Sorry, i have no idea. I have only played with C#

 

[zimv20]

So this is sort of like Java's RMI stuff, right? [...] professor [...] mentioned CORBA had replaced it.

that's an odd assessment, CORBA predates RMI. they are similar, but RMI works only between java apps. unless it's running over IIOP, which is CORBA anyway.

RMI is nice. it's easier than CORBA. it just doesn't help you if you need to talk to a C++ app

They have made this decision for the reason you said..morale killer.

afaict, there were two reasons:
1. management had already decided to kill the project (it was late and over budget, but surprise)
2. the firm had a tech board which hadn't yet approved EJB (reasonable, but misguided)

 

[darkwing]

But then you could just use null-layout in Java and GridBagLayout isn't valid as one of your anti-Java arguments.

What's null layout?

 

[cube]

Totally.

HAHAHAHA

 

[zimv20]

For a look at how EJB blows read "Expert One-on-One J2EE Development without EJB".

Today it can only be advised if you really need the failover, replication, distribution features of the container.

i fooled around with EJB for only a bit, never did use it in a real environment. i thought it was great for getting a prototype up quickly.

i did have a heap of trouble with the build environment. dunno if that was an issue w/ all vendors or just Persistence (the one we tried on project #2). basically, there was no make file and everything was built for each compile. for anything other than a toy project, this was unacceptable (i think the project compiles were around 40 minutes).

i pressed Persistence for a makefile, but they said it couldn't be done. "**** that ****", i thought, so i made one. actually, an entire build environment, some of the hardest environment work i'd done. i showed it to them and they offered me a job (i turned it down).

anyway, it's a shame if EJB didn't make it in the real world. i thought it a nice piece of technology, at least in theory.

 

[darkwing]

that's an odd assessment, CORBA predates RMI. they are similar, but RMI works only between java apps. unless it's running over IIOP, which is CORBA anyway.

RMI is nice. it's easier than CORBA. it just doesn't help you if you need to talk to a C++ app


afaict, there were two reasons:
1. management had already decided to kill the project (it was late and over budget, but surprise)
2. the firm had a tech board which hadn't yet approved EJB (reasonable, but misguided)

The gridbag animation was hilarious to whoever posted it. Thanks. That reminds me of me, only not enough coffee.

I may have misremembered him saying CORBA replaced RMI. It was over a year ago, and that's such a small detail to get out of a class, anyway.

Maybe management killed it cuz marketing decided EJB didn't sound like a cool enough buzz word to keep it profitable?

 

[gekko513]

What's null layout?

setLayout(null)

It lets you set the coordinates of the components manually.

 

[zimv20]

Maybe management killed it cuz marketing decided EJB didn't sound like a cool enough buzz word to keep it profitable?

no marketing, it was an internal app for the traders. the real issue -- and this is repeated over and over and over from what i've seen -- is that the users couldn't decide what they wanted and management eschewed their management duties by trying to solve such issues with technology. i've seen that kill more than one project.

my managers must have gotten sick of hearing me say:
1. that's a user training issue
2. that's a management issue

and my favorite:
3. stop trying to solve management issues with technology

 

[cube]

i fooled around with EJB for only a bit, never did use it in a real environment. i thought it was great for getting a prototype up quickly.

Actually, for doing EJB one has to write a lot of boilerplate.

For a more modern approach to server-side development (well, I also use it in the client, actually), look at the Spring Framework (you can also combine it with EJB if you need it). Even BEA is hyping it.

 

[zimv20]

look at the Spring Framework

yeah, a friend of mine (development manager now, but was an excellent DBA and coder for years) was talking that up. been meaning to look into it, as a measure of curiosity (in case you didn't see what i wrote earlier, i'm no longer in the industry, so i'm a little behind in cases).

 

[darkwing]

setLayout(null)

It lets you set the coordinates of the components manually.

I had no idea you could do that. So then I could use setSize() and the other one..setLocation() or something?

Steven

 

[gekko513]

I had no idea you could do that. So then I could use setSize() and the other one..setLocation() or something?

Steven

Yes, and/or setBounds

 

[darkwing]

Yes, and/or setBounds

Thanks for the tip. Next time I use java/swing I'll try that if I don't need to worry about auto resize.

 

[HiRez]

Totally.

Dude, I love the animated blog! Not quite sure what it was trying to say, but the format is great, seeing live code entry and illustrations. I'd like to see you do some actual (semi-serious) tutorials in this format.

 

[bousozoku]

Thanks for the tip. Next time I use java/swing I'll try that if I don't need to worry about auto resize.

You have to make certain that the window isn't zoomed/maximised because without taking explicit control, you end up with something quite odd looking.

 

[cube]

I forgot to mention that EJB3 improves things a bit.

 

[demallien]

I have been researching this question for quite some time and just to further that research I would like all of you experienced programmers opinion. I would like to make a career move, I have always enjoyed programming playing with VB, PHP, and the like but I am not a developer. Where should I start, in your opionion what languages will be most important to watch in the next few years. I want to make myself as marketable as possible however i know that may not be simple.

Ooof. It really depends on what you want to do. If you want to be doing Web apps you should be learning java, javascripy, perl, php, xml and all the other fun bits and peices that go into Web pages these days.

If you want to write database apps, financial apps etc, then you're probably looking at having to learn the biggies, lSAP and Oracle.

If you want to write games/consumer apps, welcome to the wonderful world of C++.

If you want to write cool hardware drivers, that make wonderful devices such as the iPod tick, go C!!!! Yay C, I love C (well, ok, the iPod was probably done in Objective-C, because Apple, god bless their cotton socks, gives us an OO driver development environment. But your mobile phone's embedded code was probably written in C)

 

[demallien]

Actually, a link to some comments from one of the industry's gurus, Joel Spolsky...
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/ThePerilsofJavaSchools.html