I'm thinking this too isn't true, and you're just suffering from 'everything was better in the past' syndrome. Today we can write a webserver-based app in a flash (hehehehehe), persist whatever we want into a database at relative ease, generate complex graphics in a simple declarative way (batik), style our GUIs effectively (CSS both for JavaFX and web, as well as turning photoshop/gimp drawings straight into GUIs), and much, much more. All things that simply weren't even on the radar back in the day. Programmers have become _VASTLY_ more efficient at what they do, and most research points this out. The nice sounding (but bollocks) notion that programmers aren't any more efficient today than they were decades ago comes from research that looks purely at algorithms. It's true there, but as my previous post hinted at, I'm fairly sure this is never going to change anyway - writing algorithms is inherently complicated. However, we _DO_ get usage of lots of complicated data structures today that we didn't back then; just check your local java.util package. I'm fairly sure cobol doesn't have a TreeMap.
I also partly blame the notion that you're using old tools. Swing is effectively deprecated at this point. I wouldn't start a _new_ project in it at this point in time. You yourself posted the arguments why: In today's world, designing a GUI should not involve counting pixels and writing down colour values in numeric form, ripping your hair out of your skull in frustration at confusing layout managers. There's no wonder you're still stuck in the mid-80s; you're using technology from the mid 90s, that's only 10 years of improvements. Join us in 2010, and you'll notice that, while it might have take 25 long years, the last few years have really lit a fire under GUI design's backside! On Jul 13, 9:22 am, "Vince O'Sullivan" <[email protected]> wrote: > On Jul 12, 11:51 am, Reinier Zwitserloot <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Sorry Vince, but, your argument is complete bollocks: > > > Because there isn't yet a programming language which, by the way, is > > mathematically provably impossible to create, java and COBOL are > > equal. > > > (Vince said he wanted a language which, given that you define inputs > > and expected outputs, writes the program for you). > > The reason I say that Java and COBOL are equal is that I, personally, > am working at the same level of detail in problem solving that I was > thirty years ago. A lot has happened around me and the tools that I > work with are shinier than they've ever been but I'd still be hard > pushed to say what is different, interlectually, about what I do now > compared with with I did 1985. In that respect, there has been little > to no progress in software development during the whole of my career. > > For instance, in the mid-80s I was laying out text boxes and labels on > IBM green screens using some long forgotten software. In the mid-90s > it was VB. Then can Swing (if anything, a retrograde step) and now > I'm using JSF 2.0. Technically, each one is better than before. > Personally, I'm experimenting with layouts, chosing colours in > hexadecimal and counting pixels. Personally, nothing has changed. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
