RE: Java Perspective -- WDSCI-L

Mr. Dykstal,

Have you ever done any application programming or systems programming??

Programmers I know of, from the worst to the best, make incremental changes
in source.  Why waste time rebuilding sections of code that you know you're
gonna alter in a few minutes??  So the question would be, was there ANYbody
that actually uses an iSeries or who has actual depth of experience in ANY
kind of programming, given a chance to input on any of this "Open" Source
crap??

===> I don't mean to diminish the efforts and intentions of the WDSCi group,
because I've seen a lot of IBM contributions on this forum.  If there was
more effort on the Tech, MI and iSN lists like there are here and the RPG-L,
then things would be much better all the way around...  However, if the
question "What are the top 10 problems" is posted, then this Eclipse is what
most experienced programmers would call a beta.

(Yeah, I've seen the "theory" on being first to market, and that theory is
worse than a beta.)



Btw, my number 1 is that apparently nobody has read ESR's OUTSTANDING
article on CUPS and typical-nix-java UI "design".
http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cups-horror.html  I've done a lot of trash
talking about ESR, but when he calls out the failures he is accurate (as
follow-up comments to second, even better article, indicates).

"It's not like doing better would be difficult, either. None of the changes
in CUPS behavior or documentation I've described would be technical
challenges; the problem is that these simple things never occurred to
developers who bring huge amounts of already-acquired knowledge to bear
every time they look at their user interfaces."

"It's been twenty years since the GNU Manifesto and nearly seven since The
Cathedral and the Bazaar. I think it's time we stopped congratulating
ourselves quite so much on our dedication to freedom and our ability to
write technically superior code, and began more often to ask What are we
doing to serve the real users? Good UI design, and doing the right thing by
Aunt Tillie, ought to be a matter of gut-level pride of craftsmanship."

ESR was discussing non-technical UI issues and documentation, WHICH GOES
DOUBLE SQUARED for programmer tools and editors.


Number 2 is that it is a ridiculous notion, based on what concept I don't
know, to imagine that a serious programmer wants or is able to be a
cottin-pickin sysadmin and expert in java, just in order to create a 10-line
program and get some work done.


Number 3 is consistent, reliabile, sub-second response-time, which I gather
is as hopeless a prospect as it was with CODE.

Number 4 is really #0:  That these first three I mentioned should even come
up, even in beta software, bogwoggles the imagination to an experienced
programmer.  And this costs $40 Million???  (Oh yeah, I forgot what I've
read over and over:  It was "free", and "IBM was kind enough to donate it."
I've seen this reported, posted and blogged, all too often...)-;


jt


| -----Original Message-----
| [mailto:wdsci-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of David Dykstal

| You can't.  WDSc is based on eclipse.  The eclipse project notion is based
| on the concept of incremental build -- which works especially well for
| Java.  If you change a .java file, it is compiled when saved.
| The IDE then
| propagates the change through the project. It doesn't really "recompile"
| other .java files, it just shows the effect of the change, but no
| new class
| files are created.  This allows you to track and fix all the errors in the
| project that the change may have caused.  You can turn off "autobuild on
| save" but you would still have to rebuild whole projects at a crack.  The
| next version of eclipse runs builds in the background for large projects.
|
| But the question is interesting.  Why does this "whole project" build
| notion cause you problems?
| _______________________
| David Dykstal
| david_dykstal@xxxxxxxxxx