I think there is something architecturally wrong with Swing

Post #210,107 by tuberculosis 6/6/05 6:49:02 PM 8/21/07 6:09:59 AM Reply	I think there is something architecturally wrong with Swing for its launch time to be so bad. Once it is up, it is so-so. Not great, often not awful either. It does look ugly next to the rest of the Mac UI though. Menu placement remains fiddly - you never know if the menubars will show up on the window or the top of the screen. The other point I'd have to make is "where are the good java apps"? Everytime this question come up people just bring up a bunch of dev tools. Eclipse (which isn't Swing BTW), IDEA, NetBeans. Great big old developer self love festival. Then there is the lotus improv clone - very slow to launch and ugly and alien looking besides. There's my data modeler app - which left such a bad taste in my mouth that I have no desire to work on a swing app again. Probably 40% of the code is to deal with swing widgets tossing null pointer exceptions because they don't have a model object just now because - hey, the user hasn't created a model. If Swing was a good development environment, we'd be up to our asses in apps by now. The old "well its kind of new" doesn't cut it anymore. Its not new - its friggen ancient and still nobody wants to bother writing for it because it is so fiddly to get basic stuff working predictably. "Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" --Mark Twain "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein "This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." --George W. Bush Edited by tuberculosis Aug. 21, 2007, 06:09:59 AM EDT I think there is something architecturally wrong with Swing for its launch time to be so bad. Once it is up, it is so-so. Not great, often not awful either. It does look ugly next to the rest of the Mac UI though. Menu placement remains fiddly - you never know if the menubars will show up on the window or the top of the screen. The other point I'd have to make is "where are the good java apps"? Everytime this question come up people just bring up a bunch of dev tools. Eclipse (which isn't Swing BTW), IDEA, NetBeans. Great big old developer self love festival. Then there is the lotus improv clone - very slow to launch and ugly and alien looking besides. There's my data modeler app - which left such a bad taste in my mouth that I have no desire to work on a swing app again. Probably 40% of the code is to deal with swing widgets tossing null pointer exceptions because they don't have a model object just now because - hey, the user hasn't created a model. If Swing was a good development environment, we'd be up to our asses in apps by now. The old "well its kind of new" doesn't cut it anymore. Its not new - its friggen ancient and still nobody wants to bother writing for it because it is so fiddly to get basic stuff working predictably. "Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" --Mark Twain "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein "This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." --George W. Bush Collapse All History
Post #210,155 by admin 6/6/05 10:48:15 PM Reply	There is... ... but you're still full of crap. :-) To turn down Moneydance because "It's Java". Quit making excuses. Launch time is better than the equivalent C/C++ app, and the interface is better. But that's outside your precept, so you don't bother addressing it. Color me disappointed. Regards, -scott anderson "Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
Post #210,162 by tuberculosis 6/6/05 11:25:03 PM 8/21/07 6:10:56 AM Reply	Dupe Friggin plastic monolith stink pot cabin cruiser has pulled into the dock next to me and I think is beginning to block my signal. :-( "Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" --Mark Twain "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein "This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." --George W. Bush Edited by tuberculosis June 6, 2005, 11:31:15 PM EDT Edited by tuberculosis Aug. 21, 2007, 06:10:56 AM EDT Expand All History
Post #210,163 by tuberculosis 6/6/05 11:25:13 PM 8/21/07 6:10:58 AM Reply	I last looked at it 2-3 years ago` some dweeb at JavaOne handed me a disk - I took it home - it sucked. Half the labels were clipped wrong or bleeding onto the next widget. I imagine its better now but the initial look was so bad I haven't bothered to look again. .... OK so I downloaded it and poked around. Its improved a lot but is still obviously a Java app (there's not enough space around the text labels - layout looks crammed). I'll give you that it launched fairly quickly on the second launch. I'm not sure why the second one was improved - first launch was abysmal - taking roughly ten times as long as Quicken to fire up. Quicken is fine and I don't have any inclination to "port" my data. Call me when they have one click import and it all just works. I dumped 2005's data as a QIF file and imported it and a lot of stuff was missing (like bank info). Also wasn't clear that I could do online bill pay or transfers - didn't see menu items for it. So I'll give you that this app - while not as nice as native, is one of the least sucky Java apps I've seen. "Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" --Mark Twain "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein "This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." --George W. Bush Edited by tuberculosis Aug. 21, 2007, 06:10:58 AM EDT Expand All History
Post #210,169 by admin 6/6/05 11:57:59 PM Reply	Doesn't look like that on my machine. Looks just like a native app. And it's pretty fast even on the first start. What are you running it on? Minis aren't exactly known for their speed. Regards, -scott anderson "Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
Post #210,252 by tuberculosis 6/7/05 1:04:47 PM 8/21/07 6:12:50 AM Reply	Powerbook G6 Powerbook G4 + 1G(Hz) + 1G(Bytes) = G6 (according to my HS algebra teacher). Machine is plenty fast and never seems to break a sweat. I suspect initial VM warmup is extra expensive but is then cached somehow. "Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" --Mark Twain "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein "This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." --George W. Bush Edited by tuberculosis Aug. 21, 2007, 06:12:50 AM EDT Expand All History

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