Finally, Microsoft put out something worth downloading, and it won’t install on my VMWare machine:
Rants and Raves
Archived Posts from this Category
Sat 13th Sep 2008
Yeah, that’s public, Java.
Posted mid-afternoon, filed under Java , Rants and Raves.Having to program in Java is a real eye-opener. It’s really not something I enjoy, mainly because I know there are better ways to do just about everything other than “the Java way”.
Take visibility, for instance. You can declare attributes and methods as private, protected or public. But if you have two objects of a particular class, they can access each others private variables. How fucking crazy is that? I mean, something is hardly private is a different object can still access it!
Another place where visibility is fucked up is in terms of methods and availability of these. If I have a class that is not defined as a public class, and I have an instance of this class, I can find out what it’s declared methods are. But I cannot invoke them, even if they are public!
I’ve got a project where I have to build a parser, and evaluate expressions. Sometimes there is a statement that can affect the state of the afore-mentioned object (which is in turn a sub-class of JFrame).
One of the statements is to resize the JFrame, which I can do by using the .setSize() method on this object. However, I cannot declare my own methods, even as public ones, and then call then from the client class.
Seriously, this is shit. All I want to do is basically pass a message to this object, and there’s no way for me to do so without changing the visibility of the class. I have a reference to the fucking object, I just can’t really do much with it.
Yeah. Thanks a Fucking lot, Drop Box. Next time, before you decide to quit the Finder, maybe check I’m not copying a heap of files somewhere.
Fail.
I have, courtesy of MkConsole, the data from some of my log files displayed on my desktop. This is really useful, as I notice stuff that gets logged there.
It’s less useful when applications write more stuff to the system logs than is strictly necessary. For instance:
That’s just a small segment of the issue, but it clearly shows that the latest release of AdiumX, 1.3.1 is dumping two lines to the console or system log every minute.
For google, the logfile data that is coming out is:
11/09/08 6:41:18 PM [0x0-0x48048].com.adiumX.adiumX[828] INFO cmdproc.c:98:show_debug_cmd() S: 000: QNG 42
11/09/08 6:41:37 PM [0x0-0x48048].com.adiumX.adiumX[828] INFO cmdproc.c:98:show_debug_cmd() C: 000: OUT
Time to go without IM for a little while.
Might get more work done anyway. But only if I kill Twitterific too, I suspect.
Tue 12th Aug 2008
Panasonic, your logic is full of fail.
Posted early evening, filed under Rants and Raves , Television.Heard on a TV ad just now:
Because the Olympics are filmed using Panasonic video technology, then it makes sense that you watch them on a Panasonic Plasma or LCD TV.
Clearly, someone at Panasonic can’t figure out that tricky logic stuff.
“Because you shit food out of your arse, it only makes sense that to eat it you should shove it up there too!”
I’m currently sitting in a café in King William Road, trying to get some coding done. I’m not achieving much, and there’s one simple reason.
There are a pair of absolute fuckwits sitting next to me, and they haven’t stopped talking for about an hour.
The guy, very gay, seems to be a drama teacher. If you are Australian, think of that show “Summer Heights High” - it’s Mr G. all over. I mean seriously.
The woman apparently has something to do with the arts - I haven’t been able to figure out exactly what skills she has, as whilst she’s been yapping non stop she hasn’t really said much of substance.
The last straw was when they were talking about some drama awards night, and she called it “wanky”. I was about to lean over and explain to her about irony - she hasn’t stopped wanking for about an hour!
Pretentious idiots annoy me. I’ll put up with snobbiness or aloofness in people who have real skills or talent. But these people are driving me nuts. I nearly bought my headphones, I so wish I had.
Aha! She’s a drama teacher too!
“It’s just like Pulteney Grammar all over again!”
I’ve never wanted Jaq to hurry up and pick me up from the café so much!
Mon 14th Jul 2008
Public Transit ain’t that great
Posted mid-morning, filed under Rants and Raves , Transport.A couple of weeks ago, there was a puff piece in the local newspaper about a guy and his wife (and teenaged daughter) don’t drive, don’t even have a car. They catch public transport everywhere, and it works for them.
Adelaide is a funny place. It’s not really densely enough populated to have a first-class transit system, and because it isn’t really that good, not many people use it. This is possibly also in part due to how easy it is to drive everywhere in Adelaide, including into the CBD.
I’m a big fan of public transport, it just isn’t working that well here right now.
Okay, I’ve deleted the Safari 4 Preview.
It just breaks too many things.
Firstly, it makes my Online Learning system not display properly.
Secondly, it makes ecto not work very well. It causes it to not post, and in fact not even retrieve posts from the sever very well. And it makes data just magically vanish.
Finally, it kills the ability to edit posts in WordPress Admin area. That’s right, it breaks TEXTAREA tags.
How the hell can you do that?
One good thing about doing benchmarking of algorithms for homework is that I have time to watch TV while I wait for code to run.
And then I see things like the World’s Fattest Man, and World’s Heaviest Teenager.
How the fuck does someone get to 1000 pounds. And you can’t tell me that the teenager’s Mother isn’t to blame for him being so large.
I just couldn’t see the point of living if I could not move around.
Databases are interesting. That’s not really what I mean, databases are kinda boring. But necessary.
Accessing databases, however, can be interesting. Not in the sense that it is something you’d like to be spending time on, but more in the “May you live in interesting times” Chinese curse sense.
I know enough about databases to design simple ones, and access complicated ones using something like SQL. I’m not saying I’m an SQL Wizard, but I can generally fudge around enough to actually get at the data I want. It’s really something I’d rather not do, fiddle around in SQL, but sometimes it’s a necessity.
I do like tools that make accessing databases more “fun”. There are two types that I’ve been using a bit lately.
The first are wrappers that make database tuples appear as objects. For instance, SQL*Alchemy in python, and Java Entity Classes allow you to basically fetch an object from the database, operate on it, and ensure that the data is pumped back into the database. It’s a really neat way to handle data, and allows great persistence of objects in OO programming.
The other is a GUI tool designed for accessing a particular DBMS or set of DBMSs. For instance, MySQL comes with an administrator program, which does a passable job. Lately, however, I’ve been required to access a PostgreSQL database. And there is a great tool for that: Navicat. With the latest version, you can even access a PGSL database over an SSH tunnel, all without having to set the tunnel up yourself.
For instance, I have a machine at my work that I can ssh into, but I can’t directly access the development machine that has the PGSL database on it. I can set up the database as if I were on the work LAN, and then set up the SSH tunnel into the machine I can access. First time, without any hassles, and I was connected to the database. Securely. Over the internet.
I also tried another application I downloaded. But it was written in Java.
Java apps on the Mac really don’t fit. I haven’t used too many on Windows, but as soon as you launch a Java application in OS X, you know it’s a Java app. It doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t use the right file open and save panels. That have all of my shortcuts that make it possible for me to work on several different projects and keep sane, and well organised.
I’ve fiddled with a couple of other Java apps, and almost without exception I have thrown them out immediately. There was a clunky merge application, which lasted one run. Same with Power*Architect. It just interferes enough with my workflow that I can’t make it happen.
Hell, it seems like a well-written application written for Windows, and running in Wine or VMWare seems to feel better than just about every Java application I have ever used. Well, maybe not every one. I guess a Java application that didn’t feel like a Java application would slip under my radar.
Which is what I’d want.