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You might be interested to know that there's two different kind of posts on this blog: "Thought of the Day" and "Normal". The "Thought of the Day" category is a once-a-day random tidbit, usually a funny video or picture, and the "Normal" is just what you'd expect from a blog like this:

Unicorn-Butterfly Soup.

--Kyle

p.s. the subscription options to the left (psst! <---- that way) reflect the same content options

Introducing Java

If this were a carnival, this post would be titled “Introducing Java, The Programming Wunderkind That Everyone Loves After They Actually Try It And Stop Being A Hater”.

Which is entirely too long, I think.

Anyways, I’m proclaiming to the world that I have been experiementing with Java (corporate site | Wikipedia), and have found it highly useful.  So useful, in fact, that I’m going to use it to write the backbone/most-of-the-real-code for the JanePrime project… instead of the planned C/C++.


Yes.  This is me giving in.

Why?  My main problem, which is also a “benefit” ironically enough, with C/C++ is the disjointed nature of the library structure.  A few libraries are naturally included, but it’s a huge hassle if you want to do anything past string maniuplation… but this is also part of the “control” that I love about C/C++.

But.  The biggest reason I’m doing this in Java is: NetBeans IDE 6.1 (corporate site | Wikipedia).

It’s like a Visual Studio environment for Java.  Except that you know your program isn’t going to be Windows-only, and randomly decide not to work if they’re not using the correct version of Windows.  Project and code management becomes very easy.

The long and short is that I don’t have to poke around in an advanced text editor and juggle a terminal.  NetBeans handles it all, in addition to letting me know in-flow if I reference a “method” (function), class, etc. that doesn’t exist.


Awesomeness in a can.  Er, uh, in a software package.

Now if only I could find one of these for PHP, then I’d have the programming environments triple threat…

Visual Studio + NetBeans + ??? = Profit!