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Sivasubramanian Muthusamy's BlogOpen Source Archivesanycar anylane anywhere driversPosted by isolatednetworks on April 10, 2008 at 09:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)Long long ago, so long ago that no body could say how long ago, thousands of people from China, Rome, France and India climbed up a mountain somewhere near Cripple Creek, Colorado and built houses to live in and lived there. The mountain town elected a Mayor who did everything to make life comfortable for the citizens except build a roadway to the rest of the world. They were an enterprising lot. They were intelligent. They were hardworking. They found a way to generate electricity, invented and built their own automobiles and lived in prosperous isolation to the rest of the world, preserving their original customs in every way possible. The Mayor established a China District for those from China who climbed up the mountains. The Chinese built roads and created a rule that "The right side of the road is for men, the left side for women and the center for carriages." And for the Romans the Mayor built a Roman District where there were roads where the Romans drove to the left. The Romans in the mountain town, though they drove to the left, didn't built roads like those in England, for they left the left for the pilgrims to walk down. They drove their cars somewhere between midway and the left. The Mayor built a French District for those who came from France and the French built roads to drive their cars to the right. But the traffic police man on the street wanted the French to drive seated on the bonnet on the left side of the car and drive to their right, so the Frenchmen became accustomed to driving without a driver's seat. The Mayor built an India District for those from Calcutta and they built laneless roads. They drove to the left or right as it pleased them, overtook or crossed each other on the left or right as it occurred to them and there was an invisible order behind all the chaos that kept the cars moving. Many many years, so many years later, the President of America discovered that there existed an undiscovered mountain town and built a roadway to the mountain town. He announced his discovery and the mountain town became an overnight tourist attraction. People from around the world drove along the road to the mountain town, some drove to the left and others drove to the right, along the road to the mountain town. Their cars stopped at the gateway to the mountain town, and they could go no further. The mountain town had traffic lanes, that were peculiar, very very peculiar to the visitors from all over the world. So they drove back to where they came from. Then the Mayor decided to build a new Gateway with an Oaken Arch. He went on air to announce that "henceforth any car will drive anywhere in mountaintown" Those who built cars that drove to the left wondered how. Those who built cars that drove to the right wondered how. They all arrived at the mountain town to find the new Gateway with the Oaken Arch. Beneath the Oaken Arch were hundreds of multi-district drivers, clothed in oaken leaves for an uniform, who asked them where they wanted to be taken. Some said Chinese District, some said Roman District, others said French District and yet others said Indian District. The driver in the oaken uniform took up the task of driving on to himself, and drove them around, for they are made like that, made to drive anycar anywhere. The newcomers didn't have to hire four drivers to drive in four districts. Any new car destined for any District simply had to find its way to the Oaken Arch. The oaken drivers took over and handled anycar anylane anywhere. Oaken Arch had a pool of drivers for everywhere, so everycar did not have to carry one driver for every district. Everyone lived happily ever after. Java as a first language.Posted by isolatednetworks on May 05, 2007 at 03:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)C and C++ may have additional uses as machine/assembly level programming languages that Java does not intend to be. Java surpasses C and C++ in its capability and ease to build desktop, webbased and mobile applications. Someone who knows Java does not have to go back to C or C++ because Java is a more refined language. (Expertise in C or C++ would be required in tasks that requires programming at a level that Java does not get down to, but that is besides the point made here) Why would someone start on his learning path with C or C++ ??? When Java was first introduced, most of those who signed up to learn Java knew C or C++, so the teachers were addressing a class of C and C++ experts and began an introduction to Java by talking about what Java has that C and C++ does not have and by explaining the Java's refinements over C and C++. This assumption of prior exposure to C and C++ is still prevalent among Java teachers. Most of the Java courses, even at the introdutory level, get into a comparision mode, and in this "introduction" the student is assumed to be familiar with C and C++. Is there an unwritten convention among programming students to begin their journey as students with C ? Is it required ? This gets the students into a sequence of learning C, then unlearning parts of C inorder to learn Java ... Why wouldn't the Java learning programs have an all new approach - Teach Java as a first language ? Apart from this unwanted assumption about prior exposure to C and C++, teachers and course designers make another wrong assumption. That the student is already exposed to Java applets and the end applications that would result from programming. So the approach is more like teaching a kid in the kintergarden the formula to calculate the area of a triangle, even before the kid is shown a triangle. It becomes difficult for the kid to comprehend what is taught. Why wouldn't the teachers begin by giving a tour of the Java applets, Java servlets, Java Games, Java applications before defining objects and methods ? Sort of beginning with the final picture... Java Everywhere invisible and on the Desktop visible....Posted by isolatednetworks on April 08, 2007 at 12:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)Even before a computer has the Java Desktop environment, there is already so much of Java in that computer - in any computer, unix or windows. Java is all over. There is Java in the computer in so many forms - Java Run Time environment, Java Browser componets, and Java is the language behind several application programs in the computer. When a Java Desktop is installed in this "already-java" environment, the machine speaks one language - Java... Of course it is not all Java, but what i am saying is that there would be a harmonious interaction between the desktop interface and the application software.... Does this theory make sense ??? | ||
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