Friday, October 13, 2006
Change is so hard....
I've completed moving my new ALG project (ETC3) over to the MacBook--all-in-all a pretty smooth transition. The MySql DB came right over. Their claims to portability stand up. The code was a little trickier. I'd been using Sun's Enterprise Studio on the PC, which they don't offer for the Mac. But since ES is really just an extension of NetBeans, I was able to get the projects to load in NetBeans for OS X. I had to rewrite some xml load and serialize code, because I'd used a third party lib that I couldn't get to work on the Mac (in the end, we all know that "Write once, run anywhere" is just propaganda). But that only took a couple of days.
It's the change itself that's hard. I'm still gaining proficiency in Java. It takes me a couple of years to get really good with a programming language and wrestling with the language and its libraries at the same time as coding in a new IDE under a new OS is a tad frustrating, especially on cross-platform tools. Not only are the shortcut keys different on the PC and Mac, NetBeans doesn't fully implement Mac shortcuts (such as full-line text selection). So I find myself first keying the PC shortcuts (from 20 years of practice) and then trying the Mac version, which doesn't work. I end up using the menus, so coding is taking longer than I'd like.
So much of the activity of programming is reflexive proficiency with the keyboard. Watch a programmer programming and what you see is flying fingers and an intense stare (accompanied by regular, softly explosive expletives). In my consulting days, I had a reputation for extraordinary productivity. 'Twas all a charade--I just made sure I was really, really good with the IDE. I'll get there with NetBeans on the Mac, but for now it is so hard....
# posted by Jim @ 10:37 AM 
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Macbook? Carpenter, as a Microsoftie.. I'm heartbroken! :)
Glad to be able to keep up with what you're doing through your blog.
Ada
Glad to be able to keep up with what you're doing through your blog.
Ada
# posted by 
: 1:42 PM
: 1:42 PM
Not sure if you've worked out your XML serialization problems, I had quite a few problems with XML serialization in Java trying to use the built in XML serialization features, until i moved to using the XStream library. I found the built in Java XML serialization really buggy with non-trivial object graphs and storing of arrays.
If interested, you can find XStream here: XStream homepage (i've found i had to use it with this additional lib XPP3.)
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If interested, you can find XStream here: XStream homepage (i've found i had to use it with this additional lib XPP3.)
# posted by : 2:56 PM
: 2:56 PM << Home
