madbean

doesn’t think JDK1.5 is so scary. Maybe he’s right, but…

You know you’re a nerd when you use vi/perl substitution commands to fix your spelling mistakes in an instant-messenger chat:

I got an email JohnnyL, an old work-mate, today: Hi Matt, how are you? I read your blog every now and then so live in a vague state of thinking that I talk to you more often than I do :) LOL. This kinda works in reverse. Upon occasion, I’ve [...]

I’m reading The Pragmatic Programmer at the moment. Chapter 3 has a section about using power-editors; it has an example showing how easy it is to sort lines of the import section of a Java file in Emacs or vi. Reading that felt strange. I remember doing the same thing in Emacs before, but I use IntelliJ IDEA for Java files now. But [...]

via CNET, via Jim Fenner. Mostly just FUD, but this time spread by PeopleSoft and not Microsoft. But still, couldn’t pass up some good Microsoft bashing.

http://www.wx4j.org/ (via here) In the back of my mind, I’ve had a pet-project to write a Java wrapper for wxWindows, because wxWindows is pretty cool. But (thankfully) Dave Dribin has beaten me to it.

There is yet another new Java language feature, that is neither JSRs 14 nor 201.

I’ve written maybe 10 “real” Python programs. Not “real-world” in the sense that they were used in commercial applications, but “real” in the sense that they were completed programs, often “glue” programs, that solved a real problem (often just a problem for me or my work mates). That probably includes about 2 or 3 Jython programs. But I now-days, I [...]

I’m in the processes of wading through the language changes in the new JDK 1.5 early access compiler. I’ve always enjoyed a reputation as a language lawyer, so I probably have a brain that is geared towards understanding new syntaxes and languages. In fact, I’m really interested in what are often considered “hard” languages, like Lisp and Dylan. So when I [...]