Java boutique members - who are you?

[theagx]

Hi, I'm new to this forum and indeed new to Java. I have been learning it since Sept 2004 (I dabbled in it for a few days last year).

I like this forum although it doesn't seem to be overly busy. I'm grateful for the replies I've had to my question in another section.

Anyway, I just wanted to know who you were. From what walks of life you are. Where you learnt or ARE learning Java. Since when? For what reason. How you use it in your day.

Are any of you working in huge teams and making software for organizations? Man, I'd love to do that one day soon. Do you enjoy it? What are some of the things you'd worked on?

What languages do you know? In what is your expertise? What programs have you made for your own benefit?

How into programming are you? How has programming changed since, say, 1991? What do you miss about the early days or prefer about now? Do you think back to old TV idents/stings/themes and think: wow, how did they design that on a C64?

What is your personality like? Are you a computerwhizz showoff? A humble quiet person? Do you love programming but think you're crap at it?

Age? location? Job role?

Tell me all. Thanks very much.

PS: I encourage you to visit this forum more often so a sense of community builds up.

Thanks again

- AGX

[theagx]

Too scared too reply huh?

Don't worry, you could just leave a few lines about your involvment with Java. I'm curious is all and you guys are in the best position to "kill" the curiosity.

it would've proved useful and an insight for those of who are students and want to know what a "programming" job would entail.

Thanks anyway

- AGX

[sjalle]

My first Fortran program compiled ok in 1972.
I started using java in 1994 as I downloaded an early
version. I was sick a tired of C and C++ and immidiately
saw that java could cure my pain. I've been using every
common 3g language(fortran, PL/1, pascal, cobol, c) in
project development and also have done some teaching.
I can mention other stuff like SAS, FOCUS, POWERHOUSE, Turbo Pascal, SQL-windows, PowerBuilder, Telon etc etc blabla.

Computing is great fun, but I've noticed something that
has scared me, and this is the reason I do not
recommend wholeheartedly to young people that "study
computing and have a good life";
In my career I've experienced two deaths of computing.
One in the late -80s and more recently; the dotCom
bubble burst. I'm certain that it will occur again, and again.

I am able to take on any computing assignment,
but I haven't had a project to work on in ages, but hey, I'm 52 and I don't know jack.

[theagx]

sjalle, thanks for your reply.

I'm really interested not just in programming and computers today, but how they worked and were programmed in the 80's and early 90's, and the lengths to which people would have to go to do what we can do today with 2 clicks.

I used to watch "Reboot", a CGI cartoon in 1994 and thinking about it now, it was amazing how they acheived it. It must have taken 2 months to render!! LOL. Toy Story amazes me too - yet, at the time (mid90's) - before I started programming - I didn't even think about how complex it must have been.

I'd love to be able to program in those languages you mentioned and see their capabilities.

What was the reason for the 80's death in computing?

Don't you think the 2nd death was more Internet-related?

Thanks for your reply.

[sjalle]

The computing death in the late 80's was probably a
local thing here in Norway; Statoil (the norwegian
state's oil company) blew 1 billion dollars in excess
expences, and afterwards the consultancy marked
collpased for about 3-4 years.

In the 80's the IBM VM (virtual machine) was very
common. It was mainframe based, but the individual
users had logical disks (a, b, c..) allocated and a
reader that worked as an inbox, and a punch
utility that was used to send data to other VMs' readers.

The IBM we used at Phillips Pertroleum Norway was a
monster 4mB ram, and it kept a total of over 100
programmers busy, online, and the gasallocations, and
the payroll etc. etc. It must have had an amazing
architecture. In 5 years it stopped once; a batch job
issued a gotosleep command, the problem was
that batch jobs was implictly "sleeping" so consequently:
as the mainframe went to sleep, in its sleep, it died..

[customwoodtek]

Hey AGX, welcome to the boards. Lets see, where to start. Well for one i'm not nearly as experienced as sjalle. I am currently a second semester senior at Mount Saint Mary's University, majoring in Computer Science. I actually started programming in 9th grade. I was using AOL back in the days of 1.0 and such, and my love with programming all started when an older friend of mine showed me "Fire Toolz." It was what we called a "progie" or "add on" AOL program. It could do all kinds of cool stuff like mail bombs, chat bombc, Im boms, punting, phishing, etc. Immeditately after I asked my parents to get my an IBM Thinkpad and Visual Basic for christmas. I made a lot of AOL add on's, i made the first program that was able to transfer buddies from one screen name to another (i made that for AOL 4.0), but it never got known and then not too long after AOL allowed you to import/export your buddies.

Anyways, I took a class in C/C+++ senior year of high school (Calvert Hall). Now I'm at MSM, my strongest languages are: C++,Assembly,Pascal,Java. I also know or have dabbeled in C, Lisp, Prolog, Smalltalk, Visual Basic (use to knwo it well, forgot it all), and Haskel, Cold Fusion, SQL.

The majority of my years in college have been spent learning/using C++, i recently made the switch to Java only about half a year ago. However, i have picked it up extremly quick, mainly thanks to the Core Java books and the fact that its very similair to C++ (but much better).

I am currently making a Virtual Assembly Machine & IDE in Java. It's named J-GRASP after my professor's program GRASP: Generic Realistic Assembly Simulation Program. Basically it simulates a generic assembly enviornment on your machine for you to write and debug assembly programs in. Its better than writing the Assembly of any specific acitechcture because its more general, if you can learn how to programin GRASP you wil essentially be able to understand ANY assembly language. He wrote his program back in the late 80s early 90s for an old PRIME computer in Pascal (67 pages to be exact). My major task has been to create a GUI and construct the Vistual Assembly Machine based off his Pascal code. It has been pretty daunting, and 5 groups of people before me have failed this project, but i'm about 60% through and its looking good. I already have 90+ pages of light documentation, along with God knows how many pages of source code.

Anyways, ever since i started learning Java (last semester) i no longer want to even look at C++. I have definately jumped on the Java bandwagon, and will continue to ride it as long as it goes. I hope to be a java application developer, maybe even get into micro java.

-Ryan

[ractoc]

I've been programming Java for about 5 years now. I started out with server side programming but lately I find myself mroe and more programming front end applications. These range from websites built with adf/uix. to applets to swing applications to midlets.

Adf/uix is a technology originally developped by Oracle, and it lets you develop web applications in a fairly short amount of time, once you know what can and can't be done. UIX is just one of the front ends to the ADF frameworr.

Swing applications and applets are very common, so I guess no explenation is needed there.

Midlets are Java applets for use on mobile phones. While it's great that this is possible, the technology is still in the early stages. There's very little in the way of standards, although this is being addressed atm. There's also a very limited version of the JRE with which you have to make your applications work. This last bit is where the real challenge is in midlet programming. In a way, it's a major step backwards with regards to platform capabilities. The memory is once again measured in Kb, as is the availlable "diskspace". The processor is very limited power as well, so anything that asks for a lot of calculating tends to freeze up the entire application, if not the entire phone...

All in all, I'm very allround Java programming atm.

[Phaelax]

I've been using java for about 2 years I'd say. Had two courses on it at DeVry where I'm down to my final year(CIS major), but continue to use java and teach myself beyond what I've been taught. Ever since my friends got me started with QB back in the 90's I've been hooked on programming. I like the idea of total control. And if something doesn't work, you can only blame yourself.(usually) First language I was taught was Pascal in HS, I don't count HTML. I've taken an intro to vc++ about 3 times now, but with no school asking me to continue in it further with larger projects, I gradually fade away from it every time. Hence why I've taken an intro 3 times. I still use c++ occationally to make a DLL for the DarkBasic language. Unlike most ppl who use java now, I still have a desire to learn c++ for game development. (which is what i use Darkbasic for) I also know basic SQL and have started learning PHP this week so that I may make a kung fu movie review website with friends. I consider A+ certification a joke because of how easy it is for ppl to get these days. These "certified" techs still get confused with how to use DOS, which is where I started. My first computer was an Amiga500, and I still have it. I try to learn a little bit of everything, so that if I must learn something new, I'm at least familiar enough with the subject to pick it up quickly.
I do not have an official computer job yet, but the rest of my life will be behind a cubicle.

[mikeBarr81]

Hi theagx, welcome to the forum. I know there aren't as many regular members here as on some other boards, but it's nice to have a board that doesn't go so fast you have to check it every 10 minutes to keep up to date.

As for who I am, i'm probably one of the less experienced of the regular members. My first degree was in physics (with next to no programming experience at all). As much as I liked it, I never did as well as I wanted (mainly due to apathy on my part). After I'd finished I did a Masters in Computer Studies, and this ran from Oct 2003 to Oct 2004. The name doesn't sound very good, but the course was actually a lot of fun. It teaches software engineering covering OO programming skills (using Java), Internet technology, Databases, designing software using UML etc, and then a big group project to put what we learnt to the test.

The biggest project i've taken on however was my Masters Dissertation which I did on my own. I had to design and implement a Character Recognition program (which i'd had no prior experience in). I used Kohonen Neural networks, and ended up with a working program by the end of it so I was pleased. I'd have liked a bit more time to perfect it, but time was pretty tight so I didn't get much chance to play around.

As for a job I currently have a conditional offer for a software engineering job. All being well I'll be starting that in a few months. They use Java a little, but mostly I'll be using C and maybe C++. I don't know either of these so i'll be doing a lot of cross training soon I guess. Anyway a year ago i'd never have believed I'd ever get a job as good as this. Still I wish i'd done a Computer Science degree instead of a Physics one.