Whoops!, ...not again... Options

[Dave_Darling]

What is it that the petunia thought when falling several miles (alongside the whale)?

"Not again!"

(Hitch Hiker's reference.)

It seems I'm jobless again; no longer part of the SF contingent of the 914 club. Probably not a bad thing, because the commute was really killing me. Jeff and others with the same miserable commute, I stand in awe of you. (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/pray.gif)

I'm thinking that I need to do a few things now. There are a number of "chores" that still need to get done (and now I have time for them!); plus I have a bunch of sleep I need to catch up on. There's some family visiting that should get done. And I really, really need to figure out what it is I want to do with my life from here. Do I want to really figure out how C++ programming works? Do I want to bail out of software alltogether and do "something else" (and if so, what)??

Fortunately, my attorney (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/wub.gif) has been very supportive. Hopefully she will remain so.

(Hmm, I wonder if the San Mateo cops had anything to do with this one??? (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/wink.gif) )

--DD

[fiid]

QUOTE (Dave_Darling @ Jul 5 2005, 04:49 PM)

Fiid, you're not the first person to suggest Java over C++.  I might start poking around with that, but I have zero experience with Java.  And nearly zero with C++ for that matter.  (Which was one of the problems at the SF job.) Hmm...  I wonder if my copy of Visual Studio will deal with Java?  If not, I bet I can download someting for XP or Linux...

C++ has *LOTS* of language features (READ: rope to hang yourself). Java has less, and is in a lot of ways quite simplistic in comparison. As a result, java code tends to be quite simple and readable (comparitively and when it's well written) - and getting something to run is generally quite easy. It's a modern, clean object oriented, type safe language that takes a lot of worries (esp about memory mgmt) off of the developer. I tend to worry more about threading issues than if I have bothered to free memory.

C++ can do things like smart pointers: your objects can count the number of references that other objects have to them, and when that count goes to zero - the object can automatically self-destruct. In Java - if nothing has a reference to an object, it gets garbage collected automatically next time RAM is a little tight - which isn't quite so ... uh... sexy, but works just as well in practice. People like to bash java's performance, but for a lot of operations it's really quite choppy, and for the time usually saved in development, you will usually have enough money to buy a second server for that big app to make up the difference.

That's not to say C++ is useless, or bad. Java is useless for a lot of (most - perhaps all) system level development, and when performance is paramount, Java is probably not the best choice. IMHExperience, most apps don't run into the kind of performance theshholds that necessetate that though - from what I have seen most apps are really just trying to have functionality that works.

If you want a free Java environment, I would look at Eclipse. On the commercial side: a lot of enterprise Java developers are using IntelliJ by JetBrains. You could mess around with the eval copy or try and get on their open source free licensing program (http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/opensource/opensource.html). I highly recommend IntelliJ.

If you get into Java and get stuck or have any Qs - feel free to email/pm me any time. I'm also on AIM/YIM most of the time.