An Analysis of Open Sourcing Java
May 3rd, 2004
I'm going to try to really tackle the issue of opensourcing Java and state my opinion of why it's a bad idea. Then I'll propose a way would could do it without all of the problems. It's a long one but please read to the end and provide your feedback. This is an issue that many feel strongly about and has the potential to influence Java's long term future. And as a career Java developer, it's something that personally concerns me.
Java's got a Bad Rep: The Rebuttal
May 3rd, 2004
So it's been a week and I've seen a lot of response to my last entry. One commentor in particular asked for a point by point rebuttal; which struck me as a spectacularly good idea. Here are the bulk of the arguments and my responses.
Does Java have a bad reputation?
April 26th, 2004
I recently read on Slashdot (something I promised myself I was going to do less) about Miguel de Icaza's comments on Longhorn. It was a pretty interesting read and makes me think I should read up on XAML and Avalon, Microsoft's new technologies for making advanced rich web applications. What struck me as particularly jarring, however, was this thread where someone asked about Java as a webapplication stack to compete with Microsoft or an as yet unwritten opensource toolkit. Most of the readers jumped on this and attacked Java from all sides. What particularly worries me was not that so many of these readers are opposed to Java, but that their arguments are almost completely wrong. Take a look at some of these comments:
From Scarcity to Excess: The economics of commodity software.
April 5th, 2004
I don't want to talk about how Open Source technology changes the rules by breaking up monopolies or giving you the freedom to reconfigure. I want to talk about actual economic effects as the cost of software approaches zero. It doesn't just save money, it produces new features by the way it's used.
The future is Vectorized
March 30th, 2004
I know it's been a while since I've posted. But I've been busy. With, um, you know, stuff! Writing stuff. Coding stuff. Drawing stuff.
Any HTML Renderers for Java?
February 3rd, 2004
I haven't written anything in a while because it was a busy Christmas season, Kimi is going back to school along with work, Lizi has to be fixed, and I started an exciting new job in the field of document management. But more on all of these later. Back to technology.
2004: the year of the Net-App
January 5th, 2004
A lot of people have put out lists of what they expect to see for the new year. Instead of going across the industry I'm going to focus on one topic in particular: networked applications. I really think that 2004 is the year of the netapp. Now sure, I know what you're thinking: "I thought 1994 was the birth of the most popular networked application ever: the webbrowser. You're about ten years too late". I'm not talking about the webbrowser. It's a general purpose application that isn't very good at anything, but good enough for almost everything. I really think the last few years have shown a desire for specific networked applications that, in the long run, will blow the pants off ye old browser.
Swing Hack 7: Let it Snow!
December 22nd, 2003
I've always wanted to make some sort of display that draws outside of a window with images scattered all across the screen. Though previously impossible in Java, I found a way to do it. And since Christmas is coming up I thought I'd use it to make a snowflake display. Here's a cropped screenshot of what it looks like:
How do you develop?
December 17th, 2003
We hear a lot about development processes these days, but I'd like to know what techniques people actually use? Do you create UML diagrams? Do you map out the states? And when it comes down to the actual code, how do you break it up into classes and packages? Does your methodology vary depending on the type of program you are creating?
Spanish Java
December 12th, 2003
I was looking at the referers to my Swing has failed article and I noticed a site called Java Hispano.org. I think it's really cool that there is a spanish language java site. This is one of the things I love about the Java community. It brings together people from many different backgrounds, unified by the goal of making high quality reusable software.
Swing Hack 6: Ghost Mouse
December 9th, 2003
I've been playing with Swing a lot lately for my new series of articles. In my research I came across another interesting class java.awt.Robot
. It's a class that can automate the UI, mainly for testing. One particularly cool feature is the mouseMove
function. Once I saw this I got evil ideas. :) Imagine rogue java programs that move the mouse cursor to mystify and befuddle the user. Spelling out hideous horrible messages. Redrum! Redrum!. :)
Point, Click, and Drool!
December 1st, 2003
When reading discussions about Unix versus Windows versus Mac, I often hear people complain about the Point, Click, and Drool user interface. This is usually directed at the Mac, but I've heard it refer to Windows and even KDE before. These people imply (or sometimes simply state) that powerful computers are hard to use and that these easy to use computers are for mindnumbingly stupid people who can't be trusted with pencils, much less normal computers.
Microwaves Are Evil (at least mine)
November 24th, 2003
Yes, that's right microwaves are evil. More specifically, the microwave in my office. Or, to get right down to it, the interface on this microwave. You see, it's awful. Just plain awful. And yet, I've seen worse.
Swing has failed. What can we do?
November 10th, 2003
I've been writing Swing apps for a long time and despite the speed and API improvements I don't think it's gotten better. After reading
Swing Hack 5: a magic lens
November 5th, 2003
It's been a while since I've written something, so I thought I'd start out with another Swing Hack. This time I've expanded on the overlay idea of SwingHack 3 by adding sort of a magic lens. In this hack the overlaid information can only be seen when the special lens cursor is over it. To pull this off I've created a custom cursor using a buffer image and set it on the glasspane. The buffer contains a crude set of boxes to define the view area, but you could just as easily use an image of a magnifying lens. Next I've restricted the drawing of the glass pane to only be under the cursor by getting the cursor coordinates from a mouse motion listener and setting a clipping rectangle centered around the cursor. Finally I've added code to print the mouse coordinates as part of the cursor. Run, compile, and you get this: (pretend that you can see the cursor which Windows printscreen thoughtfully removes for you)
How about a jApp for my car?
October 21st, 2003
Chris recently wrote about the jApps One in particular intriqued me: the Dukester a little java box that plays MP3s and can download other things. This fits very nicely with an idea I had a few years ago and always wondered why no one ever did it: good MP3 car stereos.
How do kids program today?
October 14th, 2003
I have often wondered how people learn to program today. In the old days we had Basic and Logo, but what do kids use today? The old standbys are powerful enough to make something for the web (assuming they even exist) and nothing else has a simple development environment for children. Perhaps we need something new.
We should be software *designers*
October 9th, 2003
I stumbled across an older online magazine recently. A List Apart has a wide variety of topics, ranging from CSS and typography to what a designer truly does for their client. While the discussions range from the technical to the philosophical they always target their stories at designers. They've built a truly useful site and I look forward to their return (it's on hiatus now but should be back soon with new content).
Swing Hack 4: The universal right click
October 3rd, 2003
I received an email today asking about my use of the glass pane. It seems this fellow wants to handle right clicks on any component in each screen. A logical request. In most cases your right clicks are not limited to a single component, yet to receive the events required to show popups you have to add a listener to each component! Not enjoyable.
I have seen the light.
October 2nd, 2003
As part of a new project for work I have finally broken down and learned Struts and JSPs. Struts is tremendously useful. I wish it had been around five years ago when I was up to my ears in webbased applications. But JSPs I've never been impressed with. They are good for templating but the combination of java code and html always seemed crufty. I've been minimizing the amount of code I put in them and certainly prefer to use something like XSL to keep the UI and code separate.