Cameron Laird's personal notes on Java

[BIG re-organization of this page is imminent. What attitude do I want to have to Java?]

I keep only a few Java books in my office. I co-authored "Integrating Java Applet Objects", a chapter in Inside VBScript with ActiveX, as a quick, even breezy introduction to the Java world. My favorite references, though, are Rick Leinecker's Visual J++ Bible and Bruce Eckel's Thinking in Java. Rick's a (hard-)working developer, an experienced author, an enormous enthusiast for Java, and an advocate for education. The Visual J++ Bible demonstrates all those virtues. [Explain others?]

I still have trouble navigating Sun's showcase Java site. I'll explain the mismatch once I understand it.

JavaWorld

Scriptic piques my ongoing interest in parallelization and process concepts [give ref].

"[T]he best example of a 'thin client' applet that allows users to access data sources on the web host," according to Mark Watson.

The Java Saga

Executive Summary

Peter van der Linden's Java Programmers FAQ

Sunworld did a nice introduction in July 1995.

Rik Farrow's tutorial

Folks constantly ask about real-time Java, and special devices. Newmonics apparently has the best answer for serious real-time Java work, one that Integrated Systems has already licensed for pSOS, although Lynx also claims solutions from a different technology base. The three current answers to device connection are:

• Central Data's public-domain portio API,
• Solutions Consulting's modestly-priced SerialPort class collection, and
• rolling ones own, presumably through a JNI approach, although one can imagine an implementation that relies on socket-level communications back to a Java class.

On-line documentation for Java API

My consultancy of choice for Java-oriented projects beyond my capabilities is Solidware.

Threading is subtle. Java Threads helps.

I like Robert Tolksdorf's (another Linda fan) Languages for the Java VM. Why doesn't JavaSoft make a point of maintaining this information? Why should I complain when Mr. Tolksdorf already does it so well?

Jason W. Purdy discusses a few "write once, debug everywhere" realities.