I just saw some video that confirms this, at least: it's still as Gutsy as ever!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbLhEWrAmRU
Hope you're having a lovely holiday season! :-D
Simón
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If you want a job at IU programming, Java is *the* language to aim for.
All IU's big projects are written in Java.
Java is used heavily in the "enterprise" sector. In many cases these are
massive in-house applications. If I remember the job sector, around here
if you want to get programming jobs and not work in Windows, you pretty
much are stuck with programming in Java.
Java has a large enough suite of libraries that learning more about it
will benefit you in the long run rather than adding another language
to your belt.
If you were aiming toward systems administration, then there are a
number of languages I could point you at. However for programming...
Unless you're going to be programming in Windows and/or writing hardware
drivers you may as well suck it up and learn the most Java possible.
A lot of open source software is written in Java. And even more software
plays nicely with Java. For instance, MySQL's Java interface is as fast
as the C library interface. For most other languages it is slower, as it
needs to use the C interface for the work, but for Java it has a true
native interface.
OpenOffice heavily uses Java. If you want to script OpenOffice you can
basically either use Java, or use some odd version of BASIC that comes
with it.
Now, if you're planning to learn a language for fun, I would recommend
you check out Python. Python is easy to learn and use, there is a
wide set of generally well-documented libraries for it, and one of
my favorite things: They've not only standardized on the programming
language, they've standardized on the *documentation* language, so all
Python code should be documented in English.
Also, if you're planning to learn a language for fun, I would recommend
you avoid Ruby like the plague. The "best practices in the industry"
for Ruby produces systems which are unmaintainable and unsupportable.
(Literally, you will be unable to perform a security update, let alone
a distribution upgrade without breaking things.) The language runs
significantly slower than any other language in the class. (Of the
popular set of languages, they are only faster than Prolog.) They've
failed to adopt UTF-8 or Unicode even though the language is as old
as the Unicode standard, and the language was invented in Japan. The
language is poorly implimented, and recommends coding practices which
are staunchly to be avoided in *any* other language. It is over-hyped
to the point where a lot of people mistakenly think it is good for
something. In truth, it is not. (Except, perhaps as a warning.)
You would be better off learning brainf**k than Ruby.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainf**k (Wikipedia redirects that URL
properly to the accurate name of the language. I have seen it called
simply "BF".)
Incase you've never heard of it. Here is "Hello World!" written in BF:
++++++++++[>+++++++>++++++++++>+++>+<<<<-]>++.>+.+++++++..+++.>++.<<+++++
++++++++++.>.+++.------.--------.>+.>.
But really, my recommendation is: If you want to make an occupation out
of programming, learn as much Java as possible. Ideally try to make some
nice Open Source Java program, so you can show potential employers your
mad skills.
Cheers,
Steven Black
On Tue, Dec 30, 2008 at 01:28:22PM -0500, Ben Shewmaker wrote:
> I just finished my first computer science class at IU (covering Scheme), and
> next semester the class I'm taking will be covering Unix, Emacs, and especially
> Java. I'm wanting to push myself to learn something more at the same time
> (eventually I would love to get involved with some sort of open source
> project). Would it be wise to try to learn more than one language at once in
> the first place, or would I be better served trying to learn more Java than the
> course covers? What types of projects are developed with Java? What other
> language would be useful to try to self learn?
>
> Thanks for the info and Happy New Year everybody!
> _______________________________________________
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> http://mailman.cs.indiana.edu/mailman/listinfo/blug
--
Steven Black <blacks@indiana.edu> / KeyID: 8596FA8E
Fingerprint: 108C 089C EFA4 832C BF07 78C2 DE71 5433 8596 FA8E
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Java is used for all sorts of things. Web-based video players (Freedom
Fry), SSL VPN clients (Sabre VPN), and office software (OO.o) can be
written with Java.
I recommend learning C if you want to learn more low-level stuff and
Python if you want to do more in less time. Fewer and fewer people are
writing in C these days, but I think learning dynamic memory management
and pointers in C should be mandatory education for professional
programmers. Python has gained a lot of popularity lately for being
powerful and extensible without being difficult to use.
And if you really want to put hair on your chest, learn Perl.
-Barry
Ben Shewmaker wrote:
> I just finished my first computer science class at IU (covering
> Scheme), and next semester the class I'm taking will be covering Unix,
> Emacs, and especially Java. I'm wanting to push myself to learn
> something more at the same time (eventually I would love to get
> involved with some sort of open source project). Would it be wise to
> try to learn more than one language at once in the first place, or
> would I be better served trying to learn more Java than the course
> covers? What types of projects are developed with Java? What other
> language would be useful to try to self learn?
>
> Thanks for the info and Happy New Year everybody!
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> BLUG mailing list
> BLUG@linuxfan.com
> http://mailman.cs.indiana.edu/mailman/listinfo/blug
>
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More profitable to conform to existing "standards", I guess, however
stupid and clunky that might be, than to innovate a more reasonable
interface.
To innovate a new interface, you'd have to start with a phone and
headset that only work with each other and push that way of doing
things in the hope that it catches on.
Just a thought.
Simón
On Tue, Dec 30, 2008 at 1:03 PM, Mark Krenz <mark@slugbug.org> wrote:
>
> Why do wireless headsets still need handset lifters if you want to be
> able to control the call from the headset? This is stupid, they are
> both electronics devices, just talk to each other. Heck, the hook
> button under the handset is just an electronic switch. But yet if you
> buy a top of the line headset from Plantronics, you have to have this
> handset lifter do something physical to pick up or hang up the call. So
> without the lifter I have to first press a button on the headset to turn
> that off, then press the headset button on the phone to hang it up.
>
> --
> Mark Krenz
> Bloomington Linux Users Group
> http://www.bloomingtonlinux.org/
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