tomhudson's Journal: Surprise! Java's actually gotten better.

It really does seem to run faster, with less memory.

Still not competitive with c, but for some of the stuff I'm working on, its now "good enough."

Too bad that java doesn't have a decent preprocessor ... but there are ways of working around that :-)

On a side issue - package naming conventions. I have no problem with using tld.domain.whatever.jar, and I can understand making an exception for the core java libraries (so that the provider isn't hard-coded), but why do gnu (gnu.getopts) and sun projects such as brazil - (link to packages) not do so? Neither is a "core" language feature.

Maybe someone should tell apache, the w3c, xerces, etc., that they should drop the org. prefix from their packages ...

Its bad enough that some gnu projects insist on non-standard .info files instead of man pages ... or with a man page that says "see the info file".

info pages

[Eternauta3k]

I never managed to wrap my head around those damned info pages

Re:

[tomhudson]

I'm glad I'm not the only one. I thought maybe it was just me. I refuse to use them. They're awkward, usually much less "informative" than the average man page. Gee, if I needed information broken up into 2-paragraph "sound bites", I wouldn't be writing code, I'd be a news reader for Faux News.

In comparison, man pages just work.

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[BrenBren]

Moving around info pages isn't a pain, but the fact that they seem to load in EMACS *is*. (I prefer vi to EMACS. All I know for EMACS is how to exit.)

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[tomhudson]

Type "info info".

That starts the "info" program. At just over 100k, I'm pretty sure its not an alias for emacs :-)

Type "h"

1.2 How to use Info
===================

You are talking to the program Info, for reading documentation.

There are two ways to use Info: from within Emacs or as a stand-alone reader that you can invoke from a shell using the command `info'.

Right now you are looking at one "Node" of Information. A node contains text describing a specific topic at a specific level of deta

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[BrenBren]

That starts the "info" program. At just over 100k, I'm pretty sure its not an alias for emacs :-)

Yes, I know... The commands are the same, which is why I equated the two.

"If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck..." ;)

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[tomhudson]

I tried running eclipse on the box at work last year - 5 minutes and I was still waiting ... (half-gig ram, amd64/3800). My amd2500 runs it just fine with 2 gig, so obviously it was still a memory hog. After updating to opensuse 10.3 and the latest java at the office, it opens quickly on a half-gig box, so there have been real improvements.

Mind you, I find the eclipse IDE really awkward - even stretched across 2 monitors, it feels ... yucky is the best term for it. What can I say - I always preferred Bor

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Preprocessor?

[FortKnox]

What is you need for a preprocessor? What specifically are you doing that you want it for?

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[tomhudson]

I've always found the preprocessor handy for all sorts of "magic pixie code dust". Maybe its just me, but I think its one tool that, while open to abuse, is just really really handy at times.

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[FortKnox]

I can agree that its a fun tool to have, but I've been a java programmer for years and haven't felt the need for it. I was just looking for an example, I suppose. I guess once you forget about having it, you just solve the problems in a different way.

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[tomhudson]

I'll try to have some good examples for you in a bit ... just need to find some TIME !!! :-)