One of the questions that I have been asked (and have asked myself) is why I’m even doing this project when Swing seems to give you a viable alternative. For example, for a JList, you can grab the ListModel and use it to register for event changes on the JList. At first, this all seems well and good, except for a really important issue: this is backwards.
Update:
As it turns out, I was (mostly) being a horse’s ass. It was a bit difficult to find, but Java does provide a mechanism for getting the equivalent of Object.hashCode() on any given object (not in a general way, i.e. get the un-overridden behavior, but for this case specifically). That method is System.identityHashCode().
One of the side-effects of the way Java is designed is that it is hard to identify an object. By this, I don’t mean identifying it by its apparent value, as in a List is the same as another list with the same stuff in the same order. What I mean is identifying an object as this object, not by its value, but by its physical existence in the whole program world thingamabobber. This usually isn’t too big of a problem, until you really start working with the collection framework’s HashMap.
I’ve always felt slightly offended by the people who write off multiple inheritance in one fell swoop as being something akin to the fight against guns - it’s always misused, and there is no real useful purpose, so we might as well get rid of it in its entirety. There is a slight truth to the statement, as it applies to both guns and MI (the misuse, for example), but the conclusion is oh. so. wrong.
For my last quarter at RIT, I decided to take as few courses as possible to stay a full-time student (and thus keep my scholarships) and still graduate. Since I’m required to do a 2 credit honors project, I figured that if I also did a 2 credit independent study and took 2 other courses, I would have a total of 12 credits, which is full-time. To that end, I’ve decided to do an independent study around observable collections in Java. Time to put my money where my mouth is, I suppose.
If you look over at the “Pages” thingy on the right side of your screen over there, you may notice a new page called “Virtual Fence Simulation Project.” For my Math Modeling class, we have to take some problem and create a nice, lengthy paper about it. I decided to do my project Zack Butler’s cow herding research, and I’ve posted what I have so far here (its due this coming Monday, February 26). You can download the simulator, view the javadoc (yay! Javadoc!), and see some screenshots (more to come, of course). Head on over if you are curious. And, seriously, who isn’t curious about cows? The only thing cooler is fainting goats! (youtube)
I’ve always been of the opinion that Java was kinda ugly, kinda kludgey, but a decent general-purpose language. Like most, I felt that the large framework that comes standard with Java, together with the many developer tools written to help you write Java code, really outweighed any of the minor inherent language issues and implementation issues. Well, now I’ve changed my mind. I’ve decided that now, I really, really dislike Java. In fact, if it were possible, I would piss on Java and set it on fire (is that possible? does urine burn? is that a hate crime?). I’ve just had enough.
I really enjoy the concept behind our DBSI (Database Systems Implementation) project: we are to take an existing, open-source database application (such as tinySQL, SQLite, hsqldb, and many others) and add three distinct features to it. The features are meant to show our understanding of the topics we learn in class. This is a wonderful idea, but has a few (unintended?) side-effects.
Last post of the day, I swear. All this catching up is giving me indigestion.
Wtry, o wtry, wherefore art thou not yet complete? (more…)
It’s been a long two weeks, but wtry is now in its final alpha stage (0.2). We’re almost v1.0 feature complete, which makes me (and hopefully some other people) happy. (more…)
Welcome to this evening/morning’s quiz, folks. Here is the one and only question: what happens when you don’t make a good database/data storage design for a project up front? A: The last 4 hours of my life.
