RE: field initializtion -- JAVA400-L

> (...) returning null from a user class is NOT acceptable and generally a pain 
>in the arse.  

Well, I (and a couple of thousand Java programmers at Sun) disagree with that 
statement.  Personally, I think returning null is far more consistent than 
returning an empty String, since checking for null will work with every object 
type... the equals method may not.  However, I'm not going to argue, write your 
class how you want.  But it's pretty obvious to me that you're trying to code 
around programming bugs rather than designing robust class hierarchies.  You 
need to program around bugs in procedural languages, since there is so much 
code duplicated (and often duplicated incorrectly).  In a good OO design, 
however, every line is tested, and the code is reused so heavily that bugs are 
worked out early in the development process.

As to the smileys, it's got nothing to do with my week.  Or maybe it does, come 
to think of it.  I spent an incredibly productive week teaching a class of 
bright, motivated RPG programmers how to design and implement client/server 
applications using my standard Java/RPG model.  No complaining, no bitching, 
just a bunch of programmers asking intelligent questions (how do I handle 
numeric formatting errors?) and making things work.  They designed classic 
two-panel maintenance progams over about a dozen files, and now I'm scheduled 
to go back down and teach them how to web-enable those applications and also 
how to revitalize their existing legacy applications.

Then I come here and see you with your smileys wanking on about how Java 
doesn't have a *PSSR.  Your continual comparisons from Java to RPG stretch 
exceeding thin on me, especially since this is a JAVA mailing list, not a 
RPGenerationX mailing list.  Not sure if anyone's told you, but saying some 
sort of insulting or sarcastic statement, but ending it with a smiley is 
actually improper netiquette - it's roughly akin to "God, you're fat... just 
kidding!"  It's not polite, or cute, or amusing.

Of course, THAT particular diatribe is my own opinion.  I just hate smileys 
tacked onto insults.  You add the smiley because you KNOW you're saying 
something annoying, but at the same time you're trying to avoid responsibility 
for being annoying with a little wink.

Way third grade.


> But they don't seem any better than MONMSG MSGID(CPF0000) in most
> examples I've seen.

Find some more examples.  try/catch is a very powerful error handling 
technique, especially since the coding requirements are determined by the API 
designer rather than the API user, as is the case in MONMSG.


Joe

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