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past future

    Musings on the new opportunities that Open Source Java brings

    November 12th, 2006

    I have often said that I don't love Java because I'm at Sun. I'm at Sun because I love Java. I love Java so much that I wanted to work at a place where I can do the most good for the Java community, and Sun is definitely that place. Now that Java is open source I think it means only good things.

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    Tagged: java.net

    A nice Java evening with sour cherry beer

    November 12th, 2006

    After a several hour trek through Prague Castle and the Cathedral I arrived back at my hotel with around 400 photographs. It's going to take a while to go through them but here are some highlights.

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    Tagged: java.net

    My first two weeks at Netbeans

    November 9th, 2006

    Greetings from Prague. I've been at Netbeans for about two weeks now and it's been quite a busy time. I think I'm really going to like it here. Everyone is very friendly, the city is beautiful, and they have excellent and cheap beer (cheaper than soda!). I know you are all busy, so for the speed readers in the group I've bolded the important bits.

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    Tagged: java.net

    A quick intro to HttpClient

    November 1st, 2006

    The following is a techtip I wrote which wasn't used. Since I turned out pretty well I thought I'd post it here. Let me know what you think. Would you like more of these small self-contained tips?

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    Tagged: java.net

    Java people in Prague

    October 28th, 2006

    If there is any other Java people living in the Prague area who would like to go out for dinner, drinks, or do some general site seeing then just let me know. I'm going to be here for three more weeks and I don't know anyone yet. I'm reading through my Rough Guide book and it looks like there's lots of cool things to see here.

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    Tagged: java.net

    I'm getting married, leaving the Swing Team, and flying to Prague

    October 26th, 2006

    It's true. I'm leaving the Swing team. But don't worry, I'm not leaving Sun. I'm joining the Netbeans team, flying to Prague, moving to Oregon; oh, and I'm getting married!

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    Tagged: java.net

    Update on Bug 6477341,the '...' Windows Combobox bug.

    October 18th, 2006

    Thanks to the hard work of several teams inside Sun (the development, testing, integration, and approval teams) combined with the persistence of the outside Java community, I am happy to say that the bug 6477341 will be fixed. More importantly it will be fixed in Java 6 final, not in an update release. The fix was just integrated into b103, which should be going up soon.

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    Tagged: java.net

    NASA Maps in your Swing App

    October 12th, 2006

    Short short version:

    map_not_awesome.png Not Awesome

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    Tagged: java.net

    GIF will finally be free!

    September 29th, 2006

    I just read this. The last patent on the GIF format will expire on Sunday (October 1st, 2006). At long last the GIF format will be free. Of course we should all be using PNGs for everything, but thanks to lackluster IE support that's not always possible.

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    Tagged: java.net

    Introducing Painters II: filters, shapes, and the builder

    September 26th, 2006

    Introduction

    Welcome back. Last week I introduced a cool new technology we've been working on in SwingLabs, Painters, and described how they work. If you missed the first blog you should go read it now. Don't worry. We'll wait.

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    Tagged: java.net

    Vista getting better

    September 25th, 2006

    I don't usually blog on non-Java topics here, but I thought I'd make a mention of how Windows Vista is improving.

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    Tagged: java.net

    Introducing Painters

    September 20th, 2006

    One of the temptations of design is to not show your work until it's ready. Not until every edge is smoothed and every bolt is tightened should anyone be allowed to see it. While this might be okay for paintings or sculpture, in the world of software it often leads to bad APIs. An API is the user interface for other programmers. I'm a firm believer that user interfaces must be tested with real users, and as early as possible.

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    Tagged: java.net

    LA-stravaganza

    September 17th, 2006

    One of the great things about my job is that I get to go speak to customers and other groups of Java developers. Even more amazing than the fact that Sun pays me to do this is that people actually show up to listen to me. I'm sure you've all had those times where you feel like you are still the dumb kid who just graduated and somehow you have to make everyone around you think you actually know what you are talking about. While I know that I'm a Java expert and have interesting things to say, a little part of me is still scared. What if I say the wrong thing? What if someone asks me a question that I can't answer. What if I walk into a room full of SWT lovers?! The agony!

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    Tagged: java.net

    Source to the Magnifying Glass Hack

    September 11th, 2006

    In response to my Meet the Engineer interview on Sun.com a reader asked for the source to my magnifying glass component (originally detailed in this blog). I haven't given it out because it was meant to be part of a larger framework for managing the glasspane and implementing other cool hacks. Alas I have simply not had the time. Java 6 and Java 5 updates combined with my SwingLabs and community work simply have taken up all of my available resources.

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    Tagged: java.net

    The best is yet to come

    September 9th, 2006

    Yes the best is yet to come, and won't it be fine...

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    Tagged: java.net

    Windows L&F Bugs: Part 2

    August 31st, 2006

    Welcome back to the Windows Look and Feel Show!

    In this segment we'll dive right into some of the bugs directly. In this series I won't cover all of the bugs because some of them involve structural changes that didn't directly fix visible bugs. For example, the XPStyle class was significantly changed by adding enum support. Enums let us more closely model Microsoft's UXTheme API and it's list of part constants. Also, I'm only covering bugs that were fixed. There are quite a few bugs which were closed as not reproducible or no longer a bug because they were fixed by another fix or simply can't happen any more because of other code changes under the hood. With that in mind, let's take a look at a few.

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    Tagged: java.net

    Painter Trailer

    August 24th, 2006

    Coming soon! Hard hitting, action packed, and full of effects you probably never asked for.

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    Tagged: java.net

    The Big One

    August 17th, 2006

    So you have probably wondered where I've been. It has been quite some time since my last post and I have been very lax in talking about what's going on. Well, the big news is that we are almost done with Java 6. Not really, of course, since there still emergency fixes that could go in, but we've hit our final build of main development. This means that my work is mostly complete for Java 6 and I can start working on the update releases and Java 7. However, scheduling and builds is not what I'm here to talk to you about.

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    Tagged: java.net

    I need help tracking down a bug with the WindowsTableHeaderUI

    July 18th, 2006

    Chances are no one reading my blog will be able to answer this question but hopefully in the future someone will run across this post in Google and respond with the answer.

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    Tagged: java.net

    Do We Need Databases on the Desktop?

    July 17th, 2006

    Recently Simon Morris posted a blog called In defence of the desktop where he asks :"If SE is truly the edition of Java aimed at the desktop, and most real desktop applications (browsers, players, word processors, video editors) are not database heavy, why is Java DB being included in the SE JDK?". I'd like to challenge the idea that real desktop applications don't need databases. They may not be database heavy (in that storing data is not their primary function) but I do think that there are a lot of desktop apps which use databases, or could be improved by doing so.

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    Tagged: java.net

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