So my project, which I mentioned in the last post has progressed signifantly (see cct.mercer.edu) and I'm quite pleased with it. Over my Christmas break I ended up re-coding almost the entire thing. I have learned quite a bit about developing a real application, the main thing is to not take short-cuts, writing the class/module/package right the first time is worth the extra time and thought. After I re-wrote all the 'bad' code that has been slopped together at the last minute for demo's last semester, I found that development was quick and painless. Extending a well written framework makes programming enjoyable.
I am also quite impressed with the
ZK framework. It really makes AJAX development simple. I chose to code the AJAX UI sections in Java, (ZK also allows for a XUL like UI) which made development quite simple. Object Oriented user interfaces are really neat, code reuse becomes the standard and I can now add a new form and admin console in about 15 minutes.
The Java community as been in quite a huff lately over the idea of closures in Java 7. I have skimmed several articles on them and I can't see the advantage really, just write a method! One of the drawbacks of C++ is the language bloat, and I think Java is headed that direction too. One feature I am looking forward to seeing in Java 7 is type literals and reified generics. In the application I'm working on now, having type information available at runtime could eliminate a good deal of code, and eliminate the need to pass a Class object along with a generic list.
On a personal note, something just bug me. One major thing that I just cannot understand is when people flat lie to your face. There is the person I know, and I asked the person if they were lying to me, and they said no, well I come to find out later that of course they were... Why, did that person lie, it was about something that was not trivial, and easy to verify, I chalk it up to plain stupidity.
Labels: java, programming, zk
