I've wrapped up my final Java programming project for the semester. Hopefully that means i'll never have to open Netbeans on my Mac again. What a mess thing turned out to be. Building a Java app in Java IDE that sucks isn't reassuring. The program would crash on me one out of every three times and i would loose all of my work. I never did figure out how to get it to read keyboard input. Instead i had to fake user input by reading from a text file in order to test my code.
This will probably be my last Java class for a while. Since i've decided to go for a math degree, this class was the only computer science credit required. I may end up taking more to fill in some electives. The condensed Java syntax did grow on me after a while. I even caught myself adding semicolons to the ends of the lines of my VB.NET code. Silly me. I thought about switching over to C# just to reduce the shifts in cognitive momentum between programming for work and school. I still might. It's good to mix things up every now and then to keep one's self fresh.
Posted by Matthew at April 15, 2005 09:34 PMHi, I just wanted to mention that NetBeans 4.1 can read keyboard input properly, it was an inherited restriction of ant. Mac platform was not supported in 4.0 and is officially supported now, so the stability might be improved as well.
Posted by: Roman Strobl at May 7, 2005 02:34 PMThanks for the tip, Roman. I downloaded Netbeans 4.1 RC2 and it did in fact allow me to enter keyboard input for my programs. Unlike the windows versions where you just enter text into the console area, it was interesting to see a text box pop up at the bottom of the screen for me to type in. I didn't realize that OS X wasn't fully supported for version 4.0; perhaps i didn't read the site closely enough. Normally i don't like to download pre-release software which is why i went with 4.0 in the first place. I only wish i had know all this at the beginning of the semester.
Posted by: Matthew at May 7, 2005 05:27 PM