[vox] Who thinks Java is cool?

[Alex Mandel]

On 06/16/2011 07:45 AM, Wes Hardaker wrote:
>>>>>> On Wed, 15 Jun 2011 20:49:37 -0700, Bill Broadley <bill at broadley.org> said:
> 
> So, I played with Java a long time ago (which means my opinion is very
> out of date) and was very frustrated using it.  The resulting GUI just
> wasn't clean, it was always slow, rarely portable, and it didn't matter
> if I was writing things for a native app or a java-embedded web page.
> 
> Recently I've hit an application in java which is really "my only
> choice" for using an attached antenna analyzer, since the only other
> option is windows.  I've glanced at the java code (but really didn't
> want to get into it) and the GUI still has that 'java' feel that makes
> me want to take a bath afterward.  I honestly can't even explain why it
> "feels" weird.  But it does.  And it still doesn't feel, look or active
> native to the system.
> 
> BB> C++ isn't too bad with a single developer, keeping a team using the
> BB> same subset of C++ so they play well together can be painful.
> 
> And then there is C++.  I've worked on a number of C++ projects over the
> years and have been frustrated by C++ and being able to read the code.
> Unless you're intimately familiar with class hierarchy and complexity
> you can't possible read any particular file.  I've complained about this
> to anyone that would listen for the last 10 years probably.
> 
> But then I ran into Qt the other year.  The (current) Qt framework is
> all C++, but contains some of the best documentation I've ever seen for
> a framework.  Once you get through the basics (because they do insert
> some new concepts, mainly "signals" and "slots" (though Qt isn't alone
> here)), the resulting application is suddenly fairly easy to read.  I've
> even dived into other Qt applications that I knew nothing about and
> quickly found the code I wanted to tweak.  It seems that both the class
> frameworks and people's ability to write clean code have come along
> way.  In part this comes from people finally moving away from writing a
> gazzilion classes which can all be mixed together (which is really the
> source of unreadability more than anything else).
> 
> But the best part is that Qt is actually both native and highly
> portable.  The other day I was rushing out to MC an auction.  I had 30
> minutes before I had to leave and I looked around for an application for
> my phone that would let me visually count down the number of
> minutes/seconds before the cut-off time for a particular section of an
> auction.  There wasn't anything that would display the "time until a
> time".  (Everything was "set a timer for 15:00" type of thing, not "how
> long until a wall clock").
> 
> So, I fired up qtcreator (which is the first IDE that has ever switched
> me away from 20+ years of refusing to write code in anything other than
> emacs).  I created an application on my desktop that did what I wanted.
> I told qtcreator to recompile it for my phone, put it on my phone and it
> worked flawlessly.  When I got done with this whole process, I still had
> 15 minutes to spare.  In 15 minutes I went from "I need X" to having X
> on multiple platforms, all looking native and running very very fast.
> 
> The end result is that it's really been in my mind as the language that
> Java strived to be but failed at.  I've written applications for linux,
> windows, osx, maemo (phone), & symbian (phone) and am starting to dabble
> in Qt on android.  The whole "write once, run anywhere" actually almost
> works with Qt, unlike "rarely works" with anything I've ever tried with
> Java.  But, as I said, my java knowledge is out of date.
> 

I also use Qt Creator but use it with PyQt in python based apps and have
found it really useful and easier to work with than my other preference
for GUIs WxWidgets. Qt Translator is also a really useful add-on for
multi-lingual.

As for the Look & Feel of Java I too have despised the default java look
- fonts are always too small, icons just don't look good,etc, oddly
enough a lot of java websites have some of the same look issue which is
odd since that's rendered to html (maybe the devs just don't bother to
learn css and web design).
Someone did recently mention that Java doesn't have to be that ugly but
it's at the cost of adding complexity. You can switch from the default
Java look and feel to the "System" Look and Feel. You app will look
different on multiple platforms but it won't be the Java ugly most of us
complain about.
http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/lookandfeel/plaf.html

I'll note up until my recent foray into Android I had also much disliked
eclipse which 5 years ago was a giant memory hog that liked to crash.
While it still has some major nuisances it worked pretty well for
Android dev including a mostly drag and drop interface builder (I plan
to play with Qt next though). I'm still not going to switch to eclipse
as a python editor though that just seems weird.

Thanks,
Alex