Raghavan "Rags" Srinivas's Blog

June 2004 Archives

Have you sowed the Bean, yet?

The session talked about bringing up different tools within the IDE and how the different data/stats., like memory, profiling information, etc. could be correlated without leaving the IDE. From syntax coloring to being able to step through JSPs, the IDEs seem to be so feature rich. I remembered my first assignment right after school when I had to find out memory leaks in a C/C++ program and what a royal pain it was.

Do you think this seemingly quantum shift in features of IDEs have made you dramatically more productive?

IDEs are like religion and developers generally stick to an IDE and work around its idiosynchrasies. However, If you have not checked out the latest netbeans, perhaps this might be the time to give it a spin.

Rags

Java - If it's not your cuppa tea, it ought to be

• Network Security: From Warfare to Web Services
• The economic implications of Open Source
• If Java is not your cuppa tea, it ought to be

After Scott McNealy's general session this morning, I am convinced that the third topic will probably be the most appropriate.

The game demos. were simply astounding. The frame speeds & the graphics resolutions were really jaw dropping. The Looking Glass desktop was also a great example. But, what sealed the argument on whether Java is not ready for certain applications was the Dukie awards. A variety of applications across the gamut have been written and deployed successfully in Java, not to mention the T-shirt throwing gadgets that incorporated some Java.

Although no technology is a silver bullet, it's worth thinking about Java for every application that you are called to design. Shameless plug here, attend BOF-1404 from 7:30 to 8:20PM tommorow to see an example of Java Everywhere.

So, Java might indeed be your perfect cuppa tea.

Rags

Java - the C/C++ inheritance

Of all the questions, the one that struck me most, was the intertwining of Java and the C/C++ language. Obviously, many of us in the Java community did take the C/C++ route and sometimes wish for some of the esoteric feautures of C/C++ that we miss.

When I joined Sun, I had a discussion with James Gosling about the fact that I loved STL and when would templates be incorporated in Java. I am glad that a much improved version of templates i.e. generics is in Java.

However, it also reminded me of some of the pitfalls. I quickly typed in a piece of C/C++ code.

#include <stdio.h>
main()
{
    if ( (unsigned) 0 < -2)
        printf("C is falling apart\n");
}

If you're able to guess the answer for this and realize why, you may probably agree with me that the unsigned is abused more than used appropriately.

I hope that Java continues to be relatively small, elegant and harder to commit mistakes. Thoughts?

Rags

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