Hrm. How to go about doing this?

I want to give a Java application a window icon in a manner that is
independent of how it is installed, etc.

The trick is obtaining an Image object for myJFrame.setIconImage().
Loading it from a URL means it won't work without a working network
connection, and I need to host the image somewhere. Every copy of the
app running anywhere in the world will, on startup, hit that host with
a request for the file(!). Loading it from a file path requires a
separate installer that sets the image into a specific directory.
Putting it in a JAR file with the app means learning a big new chunk of
API, plus it won't work when running in the development environment
rather than as a standalone executable JAR.

This suggests doing the ListMessageBundle sort of thing, and somehow
packaging it as a class -- an Image subclass, presumably. Is there a
tool for turning a jpeg, gif, or png into Java source code for an Image
subclass that will, when instantiated, behave as the appropriate jpeg?

I don't have the google-fu to find this -- searches for queries like
"image resource class java" didn't do much for me. Damn, we need *real*
natural language search. :P

"Twisted" <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1163985897.353793.93270@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> Hrm. How to go about doing this?
>
> I want to give a Java application a window icon in a manner that is
> independent of how it is installed, etc.

The usual method is to use Class.getResource(), which will work
whether the class and icon are in a jar file or not. 

Twisted <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote:
>I want to give a Java application a window icon in a manner that is
>independent of how it is installed, etc.
>The trick is obtaining an Image object for myJFrame.setIconImage().
>Loading it from a URL means it won't work without a working network
>connection, and I need to host the image somewhere.

Not at all.  A URL doesn't always mean http.  It could be a file URL, or a
resource URL inside your jarfile.

>Putting it in a JAR file with the app means learning a big new chunk of
>API, plus it won't work when running in the development environment
>rather than as a standalone executable JAR.

URL imgURL = getClass().getClassLoader().getResource("img/path");

Works if the image is in a jarfile OR a directory on the classpath.
--
Mark Rafn    dagon@dagon.net    <http://www.dagon.net/>  

Larry Barowski wrote:
> "Twisted" <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1163985897.353793.93270@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> > Hrm. How to go about doing this?
> >
> > I want to give a Java application a window icon in a manner that is
> > independent of how it is installed, etc.
>
> The usual method is to use Class.getResource(), which will work
> whether the class and icon are in a jar file or not.

Where does it look, if the class isn't in a jar file? The directory
with the .class file?

Mark Rafn wrote:
> Twisted <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote:
> >I want to give a Java application a window icon in a manner that is
> >independent of how it is installed, etc.
> >The trick is obtaining an Image object for myJFrame.setIconImage().
> >Loading it from a URL means it won't work without a working network
> >connection, and I need to host the image somewhere.
>
> Not at all.  A URL doesn't always mean http.  It could be a file URL, or a
> resource URL inside your jarfile.

File URL and jar I was considering separately.

> URL imgURL = getClass().getClassLoader().getResource("img/path");
>
> Works if the image is in a jarfile OR a directory on the classpath.

Hrm.

Anyway I found something interesting. My google-fu isn't as weak as I
thought -- I was eventually able to dredge up a way to encode icons
into a class file.

It involved exporting the file from photoshop as an XPM, pasting most
of the result into the declaration of a string array, and feeding it to
a class named XImageSource. Of course, this turned out not to be a
standard library class, and tracking it down posed its own challenge
(during which time Firefox crashed for the second time today -- it hit
a crapplet on a page somewhere and died the number. It actually
tottered along sort-of-working until I quit it, but wouldn't load
anything -- and after being quit I couldn't start a new instance until
I terminated a bunch of firefox-related processes that were idling in
the task manager that didn't have any UI or cpu activity!).

Naturally, the XImageSource class had dependencies to track down as
well.

Naturally, one of those dependencies had a bug -- XpmParser. It had

      colors = new int[charsPerPixel*2];

where it appeared to need

      colors = new int[(charsPerPixel == 2)?65536:256];

since it actually multiplies one char by 256 and adds a second in the
latter case, and was throwing ArrayOutOfBoundsExceptions like they were
going out of style.

Naturally, the author of those classes included a copyright notice and
will probably sue me for copyright infringement for fixing their bug
without permission, too, now that I've copped to this heinous act in a
public newsgroup posting.

But it actually works, and the source code is completely
self-contained, without requiring any extra files besides the .java
files. Which is what I was hoping to accomplish.

Thanks anyway. :)

Twisted wrote:
> But it actually works, and the source code is completely
> self-contained, without requiring any extra files besides the .java
> files. Which is what I was hoping to accomplish.

Update: with another hack and more copyright infringement (further
editing the XImageSource code) I now have working transparency as well
-- the first color index set to perfectly white (255, 255, 255) in the
XPM disappears. The thing looks far better in my task list now.

>> Twisted <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >Loading it from a URL means it won't work without a working network
>> >connection, and I need to host the image somewhere.

>Mark Rafn wrote:
>> Not at all.  A URL doesn't always mean http.  It could be a file URL, or a
>> resource URL inside your jarfile.
>> URL imgURL = getClass().getClassLoader().getResource("img/path");
>> Works if the image is in a jarfile OR a directory on the classpath.

Twisted <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote:
>Anyway I found something interesting. My google-fu isn't as weak as I
>thought -- I was eventually able to dredge up a way to encode icons
>into a class file.

It doesn't need to be a class file for the classloader to find it as a
resource.  

>It involved exporting the file from photoshop as an XPM, pasting most
>of the result into the declaration of a string array, and feeding it to
>a class named XImageSource.
....
>Naturally, the XImageSource class had dependencies to track down as
>well.
....
>But it actually works, and the source code is completely
>self-contained, without requiring any extra files besides the .java
>files. Which is what I was hoping to accomplish.

Wouldn't it be MUCH easier to put gif/jpg/png files directly into the jar,
then let the classloader find them using getResource or getResourceAsStream?
--
Mark Rafn    dagon@dagon.net    <http://www.dagon.net/>  

Twisted wrote:
> Twisted wrote:
>> But it actually works, and the source code is completely
>> self-contained, without requiring any extra files besides the .java
>> files. Which is what I was hoping to accomplish.
> 
> Update: with another hack and more copyright infringement (further
> editing the XImageSource code) I now have working transparency as well
> -- the first color index set to perfectly white (255, 255, 255) in the
> XPM disappears. The thing looks far better in my task list now.
> 

What's the advantage of this approach compared to using getResource?

Patricia

Patricia Shanahan wrote:
> What's the advantage of this approach compared to using getResource?

It's built right into the frame subclass file it applies to?
It doesn't need to be put in some jar file, then retrieved, then all
kinds of recovery code written to deal with the IOExceptions that can
result if Something Goes Wrong(tm)?
No need to fiddle with classpath?
Everything is self-contained in the source files?

Mark Rafn wrote:
> Wouldn't it be MUCH easier to put gif/jpg/png files directly into the jar,
> then let the classloader find them using getResource or getResourceAsStream?

First of all, I don't *have* a jar, at least not yet.

Second of all, this is the kind of thing that should really just work
without being able to bomb with IOExceptions and suchlike, in my
opinion. Retrieving even the most basic stuff from a bunch of external
files adds unnecessary points of failure, and gobs of extra recovery
code to check for and cope with anything that goes wrong. This way, it
Just Works(tm). :)

Twisted wrote:
> Patricia Shanahan wrote:
> > What's the advantage of this approach compared to using getResource?
>
> It's built right into the frame subclass file it applies to?

Why would it?  It's built into the classloader that
many different classes use to get paths to resources.

> It doesn't need to be put in some jar file, then retrieved,

Why?  Where were you intending to put it.. the cookie jar?

>...then all
> kinds of recovery code written to deal with the IOExceptions that can
> result if Something Goes Wrong(tm)?

Oh, of course, if nothing could conceivably go wrong
with your own home rolled method* - don't bother with
all this getResource crap.

* Such as the image showing 'all white'.

> No need to fiddle with classpath?

Nope.  You just need to specify it correctly for the application
(once).

> Everything is self-contained in the source files?

Now you're ust being silly.  Are you intending to put
- properties files
- help text
- localization data
- any of many other resources..
...'stitched in' to the code?

Therein lies the path to madness, but (checks sig.)
'Twisted'.. I see your on your way there, so...

Go for it!    ;-)

Andrew T.

Andrew Thompson wrote:
> Twisted wrote:
> > Patricia Shanahan wrote:
> > > What's the advantage of this approach compared to using getResource?
> >
> > It's built right into the frame subclass file it applies to?
>
> Why would it?  It's built into the classloader that
> many different classes use to get paths to resources.

Eh -- getResource is, but the resource itself isn't.

> Oh, of course, if nothing could conceivably go wrong
> with your own home rolled method* - don't bother with
> all this getResource crap.
>
> * Such as the image showing 'all white'.

It works fine, and doesn't do any I/O to get it. The only way for
something to go wrong would be if classloading went wrong at a
fundamental level, rather than some image on disk somewhere not being
found. If classloading goes that wrong, the image not being loaded is
the least of my problems.

> Now you're ust being silly.  Are you intending to put
> - properties files
> - help text
> - localization data
> - any of many other resources..
> ..'stitched in' to the code?

If it gets complex enough to involve such, then there will be separate
files for some of those, and I'll have to worry about how to get a user
directory in a system-independent way to put the properties files in,
and how to get the app's directory to look for help and non-English
localizations in.

Twisted wrote:

> > ...Are you intending to put
> > - properties files
> > - help text
> > - localization data
> > - any of many other resources..
> > ..'stitched in' to the code?
>
> If it gets complex enough to involve such, then there will be separate
> files for some of those, and I'll have to worry about how to get a user
> directory

Try
  System.getProperty("user.home");

(then make a subdirectory based on you main's
package name, to contain the resources - so
they don't get wiped by other applications)

>...in a system-independent way to put the properties files in,
> and how to get the app's directory to look for help and non-English
> localizations in.

JWS can handle localisation for you (in the sense
of delivering the correct files for each locale),
finding and using those localised resources would
then most naturally be done using getResource().

Java access to (internal - program specific) files is
heavily based around getResource(), I suspect things
will go a lot quicker for you once you have it working
for you.

Note: I never found a way to use getResource() for
both jar'd and 'loose' resources, but with ant build files
(or anything else with even half Ant's abilities) it
is trivial to stamp out a jar(s) of the current project,
and launch it(/them).

Andrew T.

Andrew Thompson wrote:
> Note: I never found a way to use getResource() for
> both jar'd and 'loose' resources, but with ant build files
> (or anything else with even half Ant's abilities) it
> is trivial to stamp out a jar(s) of the current project,
> and launch it(/them).

Of course, for that I'd need Ant, and to know how to use it...

Twisted <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Now you're ust being silly.  Are you intending to put
> > - properties files
> > - help text
> > - localization data
> > - any of many other resources..
> > ..'stitched in' to the code?
> 
> If it gets complex enough to involve such, then there will be separate
> files for some of those, and I'll have to worry about how to get a user
> directory in a system-independent way to put the properties files in,
> and how to get the app's directory to look for help and non-English
> localizations in.

Actually, getResource is exactly the solution to everything you are 
mentioning.  Nothing is stored in some directory on some disk somewhere.  
Everything is stored in the same JAR file with all of your code; one 
file that you can distribute around that contains the whole application.  
All this, and you don't have to do kludgy things like build images into 
the source code of your classes.

(By the way, if exceptions should never happen, as is the case when 
using getResource on a resource that's packaged in a JAR file with your 
application, then it's pretty trivial to add

    try
    {
        ...
    }
    catch (SomeException e)
    {
        throw new RuntimeException(e);
    }

No information is lost, and you don't have to write any complex error 
reporting code or anything like that.  Just be careful that you don't 
catch some exceptions indicating real plausible problems like this.)

-- 
Chris Smith

On Nov 20, 5:10 am, "Twisted" <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Of course, for that I'd need Ant, and to know how to use it...

Learning how to use Ant is a bad thing why? It's a very valuable and
widely used development tool in the Java world.

Twisted wrote:
> Mark Rafn wrote:
> > Wouldn't it be MUCH easier to put gif/jpg/png files directly into the jar,
> > then let the classloader find them using getResource or getResourceAsStream?
>
> First of all, I don't *have* a jar, at least not yet.
>
> Second of all, this is the kind of thing that should really just work
> without being able to bomb with IOExceptions and suchlike, in my
> opinion. Retrieving even the most basic stuff from a bunch of external
> files adds unnecessary points of failure, and gobs of extra recovery
> code to check for and cope with anything that goes wrong. This way, it
> Just Works(tm). :)

"It Just Works(TM)" is considered a very bad approach to software
design.  Doing things that "Just Work" versus doing things that "Work
Right", tends to save a minute now and cost a week later.  What happens
when you have three icons?  10? What happens when you rebrand those 10
icons?  Having them as actual image files rather than converting them.
Ouch.

BTW, if you REALLY wanted to go that route, you could do a byte dump of
the original (png/jpeg/gif) image, and use imageio and a
ByteArrayInputStream (there is such a thing, right?). Releasing you
from using the apperantly buggy XImageWhatchamawhosit. Although, I
wouldn't recommend either approach.

I find the phenomenon of topic drift curious. There seems to be a
recurrent pattern in this group in which a person creates an initial
topic of some Java related sort or another and the topic quickly drifts
to criticism and "bashing" of the person that started the thread.

This does nothing to encourage people to seek information here.

Perhaps some people need to leave their egos at home when they visit?

Re: the most recent round of (universally hostile-toned) replies, I'd
already mentioned that bundling stuff in a jar is not a complication I
wish to handle just yet. Particularly as it means the app has to look
for resources in two places: in a jar with the app (where they'd be
when the app's been packaged and installed somewhere) and in my
computer's specific directory structure somewhere (where they'd be
during development). Someone mentioned putting them along the class
path and their being found automatically if they're there or in a jar
with the app; but then I need to set my class path on my development
machine to include the source directory for every project that has
resources, don't I? Ouch. Or I can track down, download, study, and use
a new build tool (when Eclipse has been serving me well so far)...it
sounds to me like if I'd gone that route I'd still be fiddling with
something merely preliminary to getting the icon to work *now*, around
48 hours later. When there's a lot more resources, and
optional/switchable ones like internationalization resources, then that
looks like a wise investment of time; when there's only the one little
32x32 gif, it seems more like a *waste* of time.

Twisted wrote on 21.11.2006 00:06:
> Re: the most recent round of (universally hostile-toned) replies, I'd
> already mentioned that bundling stuff in a jar is not a complication I
> wish to handle just yet. Particularly as it means the app has to look
> for resources in two places: in a jar with the app (where they'd be
> when the app's been packaged and installed somewhere) and in my
> computer's specific directory structure somewhere (where they'd be
> during development). Someone mentioned putting them along the class
> path and their being found automatically if they're there or in a jar
> with the app; but then I need to set my class path on my development
> machine to include the source directory for every project that has
> resources, don't I? 

Hmm. Netbeans does that automatically for me. I have all my resource in my Java 
source directory (gif, properties, xml and txt files). When I build my project, 
NetBeans compiles my Java classes (of course) and then copies all non-Java files 
to the classpath (according to their location in the Source path).

I use getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream() in several places and this approach 
has never given me any headaches. It works fine from within NetBeans and as well 
when I distribute my (Swing) application as a jar file.

Maybe you can convince Eclipse to copy the non-Java files as well?

My 0.02�

Thomas

Twisted wrote:
> I find the phenomenon of topic drift curious. There seems to be a
> recurrent pattern in this group in which a person creates an initial
> topic of some Java related sort or another and the topic quickly drifts
> to criticism and "bashing" of the person that started the thread.

I suspect it is proportional to the amount of good advice previously 
ignored.

> Perhaps some people need to leave their egos at home when they visit?

True, have you considered whether your own ego might be getting in the 
way of your accepting good advice?

> Re: the most recent round of (universally hostile-toned) replies, I'd
> already mentioned that bundling stuff in a jar is not a complication I
> wish to handle just yet. 

You must be aware that Eclipse has a wizard for creating Jars. I find it 
  a lot less complex than your method of encoding image data within 
class files seems.

> Particularly as it means the app has to look
> for resources in two places: in a jar with the app (where they'd be
> when the app's been packaged and installed somewhere) and in my
> computer's specific directory structure somewhere (where they'd be
> during development). Someone mentioned putting them along the class
> path and their being found automatically if they're there or in a jar
> with the app; but then I need to set my class path on my development
> machine to include the source directory for every project that has
> resources, don't I? Ouch. Or I can track down, download, study, and use
> a new build tool (when Eclipse has been serving me well so far)...it
> sounds to me like if I'd gone that route I'd still be fiddling with
> something merely preliminary to getting the icon to work *now*, around
> 48 hours later. When there's a lot more resources, and
> optional/switchable ones like internationalization resources, then that
> looks like a wise investment of time; when there's only the one little
> 32x32 gif, it seems more like a *waste* of time.

I use Eclipse, I have an image for my app in a subdirectory of my 
project. I have this code (and this code only) to load the image:

setIconImage(new ImageIcon(MainForm.class
                 .getResource("/resources/logo32.png")).getImage());

When I run the app from Eclipse it finds the image from the subdirectory 
in the filesystem.

After getting Eclipse to make a jar that includes the image, running the 
jar causes the image to be loaded from the jar instead. No change to the 
above code.

I just don't see the problem you seem to be struggling against. I didn't 
need to do anything with my classpath or change my build tool (I use 
plain old Eclipse without Ant etc)

Maybe I'm missing something, but it looks like you've spent more time 
thinking up arguments why you shouldn't try the suggestions offered than 
you would have spent simply trying them.

Thomas Kellerer wrote:
> Hmm. Netbeans does that automatically for me. I have all my resource in my Java
> source directory (gif, properties, xml and txt files).

Beans, net or otherwise, are outside my scope at least right now.

There's *way* too much Java-related stuff out there (even just from
Sun) to expect any one person to know and use it all.

Ian Wilson wrote:
> You must be aware that Eclipse has a wizard for creating Jars. I find it
>   a lot less complex than your method of encoding image data within
> class files seems.

Create a jar every edit-test-debug cycle? That adds up when you are
rapidly tweaking and adjusting something. As opposed to something you
can just "set and forget".


> I use Eclipse, I have an image for my app in a subdirectory of my
> project. I have this code (and this code only) to load the image:
>
> setIconImage(new ImageIcon(MainForm.class
>                  .getResource("/resources/logo32.png")).getImage());
>
> When I run the app from Eclipse it finds the image from the subdirectory
> in the filesystem.
>
> After getting Eclipse to make a jar that includes the image, running the
> jar causes the image to be loaded from the jar instead. No change to the
> above code.

Hrm. Where is this subdirectory?

> Maybe I'm missing something, but it looks like you've spent more time
> thinking up arguments why you shouldn't try the suggestions offered than
> you would have spent simply trying them.

You may be missing the fact that I got it working several postings ago?
And in fact before the first reply arrived, once I managed to happen on
a Web page suggesting the method that I used. That page, by the way,
being somewhere in Sun's huge sprawling Java site.

Now, for doing something suggested on Sun's own Web site, I find myself
being harangued and forced to keep posting stuff in my own defense
instead of getting on with my work, in a thread that should be dead now.

On Nov 21, 9:32 am, "Twisted" <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Now, for doing something suggested on Sun's own Web site, I find myself
> being harangued and forced to keep posting stuff in my own defense
> instead of getting on with my work, in a thread that should be dead now.

I'm sorry you take it as hostility and bashing. We are all trying to
tell you that what you are trying to do is a really bad way to do it. I
don't understand your resistance to doing it the way that is
universally accepted as the standard way to bundle resources with a
Java app.

I do understand your argument that it's a pain to construct a JAR to
use every time; however, Ant eliminates this inconvenience.
Ant is trivial to use, and has a very short learning curve. When you
set up an Ant buildfile, you can have it automagically build your JAR
file for you.

As I said in an earlier post, why are you opposed to learning how to
use Ant?

-- 
jpa

Twisted <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote:
> > The usual method is to use Class.getResource(), which will work
> > whether the class and icon are in a jar file or not.
> 
> Where does it look, if the class isn't in a jar file? The directory
> with the .class file?

Yes.

-- 
Chris Smith

Joe Attardi wrote:
> I'm sorry you take it as hostility and bashing.

"I'm sorry you..." is not (and never is) a genuine apology.

Sorry; please try again.

> We are all trying to tell you that what you are trying to do is a really bad way to do it. I
> don't understand your resistance to doing it the way that is
> universally accepted as the standard way to bundle resources with a
> Java app.

Let's consider the following points (ALL of which have been raised
before, but obviously in posts that some participants here have clearly
not bothered to read):
1. At the time I made the initial posting to this thread, a google
search had failed to reveal *any* "standard way" to include icons
whatsoever.
2. Before any replies had been made, further attempts at googling the
topic finally turned up a page on Sun's Java site describing a method
-- the method I actually used. This page also mentioned some other
methods, but those were only applicable to applets, not stand-alone
applications (they involved requesting the icon from a URL, either
relative to document base or code base, from the applet's host server),
while the first method was applicable to both.
3. All of the replies appear to require additional tools (most commonly
Ant). The time investment involved in finding, obtaining, and learning
the additional tools is not justified until I've got more than a single
32x32 gif (and really only if I have stuff that should be localizable
or hot-swappable or something).

> As I said in an earlier post, why are you opposed to learning how to
> use Ant?

I am not. I *am* opposed to the notion that if someone wants to do a
certain thing, then of all the various ways that it can be successfully
done, there is One True Way and anyone who doesn't do it that way,
whatever the additional complications that entails, must Convert Or
Die! (Well, convert or be flamed, anyway.)

Let's see what lessons I would have learned from you lot if I were the
credulous and gullible type:
1. Never research something yourself using Google and figure out a
successful method on your own.
2. Any method that doesn't require lots of work, new tools, and perhaps
expensive new tools is wrong; if you managed to get it done in under
twenty minutes, you can't possibly have done it right.
3. There is only one way to do anything. There are other ways, perhaps,
that appear to accomplish the same thing, but you will bear a stain on
your soul for all eternity, not that this makes any emprical difference
to anything mind you.
4. When the anonymous person on Usenet tells you to do something, you
do it, without question.
5. The very last place to go for trustworthy information on doing stuff
in Java is www.sun.com. Google and wikipedia must also be stringently
avoided.
6. It's far more important to do things the Standard Way(tm) and
conform and fit in than to actually get something working, or to learn
or accomplish things on your own.
7. A simple solution is usually wrong; a complicated one that involves
at least two completely new build tools or distribution tools is
invariably better.

Allrighty then ...

On Nov 21, 11:06 am, "Twisted" <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote:
> "I'm sorry you..." is not (and never is) a genuine apology
I wasn't apologizing. I was expressing regret that you are
misinterpreting the advice we are giving you.

-- hyperbole snipped --

> 2. Any method that doesn't require lots of work, new tools, and perhaps
> expensive new tools is wrong; if you managed to get it done in under
> twenty minutes, you can't possibly have done it right.
You're kidding, right? Lots of work? The approach you are describing
sounds like it's more work. Expensive tools? Yeah, Ant is free, so
there goes that.

-- more hyperbole snipped --

It's not that there's one and only one way and any independent thought
is shunned. But for a simple case like an application's icon, there is
a tried and true method for doing it. It makes sense. You say it's not
worth it because you only have one image. What about designing for
extensibility?

These replies have not been hostile, at least no more than yours have
been. You asked advice, and we gave it. People have a bad habit of
reacting negatively to advice if it doesn't coincide with what they
initially thought - this is not a flame, it's an observation. I do it
too; everybody does it at times.

But please, before you ignore all the good advice that's been given,
really think about what advantage your approach has. And don't be so
hostile just because people don't agree with your approach.

And what's with The Capitalized Phrases and random (tm) ?

"Twisted" <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1164125197.063890.128970@j44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> 3. All of the replies appear to require additional tools (most commonly
> Ant).

No they don't. Whatever tool you're using to jar up your
project will also copy the image files, even if you're just using
the "jar" command. But you say you don't have a jar file, so
there is nothing extra you need to do. 

Twisted wrote:
> Let's consider the following points (ALL of which have been raised
> before, but obviously in posts that some participants here have clearly
> not bothered to read):
> 1. At the time I made the initial posting to this thread, a google
> search had failed to reveal *any* "standard way" to include icons
> whatsoever.
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hs=w8D&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=java+resource+loading+&btnG=Search

I see quite a few links to ClassLoader.getResource, hmm, how about
that.

> 2. Before any replies had been made, further attempts at googling the
> topic finally turned up a page on Sun's Java site describing a method
> -- the method I actually used. This page also mentioned some other
> methods, but those were only applicable to applets, not stand-alone
> applications (they involved requesting the icon from a URL, either
> relative to document base or code base, from the applet's host server),
> while the first method was applicable to both.
Was this in a forum? Just because its on suns site doesn't mean its
reliable.

> 3. All of the replies appear to require additional tools (most commonly
> Ant). The time investment involved in finding, obtaining, and learning
> the additional tools is not justified until I've got more than a single
> 32x32 gif (and really only if I have stuff that should be localizable
> or hot-swappable or something).
Actually, most of them suggested using ClassLoader.getResource, and
that if you thought it was difficult to create jar files, try using ant
instead.  The suggestion may have been off topic, but it was only meant
to help.

> 5. The very last place to go for trustworthy information on doing stuff
> in Java is www.sun.com. Google and wikipedia must also be stringently
> avoided.

This seems to be what you do, I usually get my information from Google,
or perhaps a book written on the subject.

> 6. It's far more important to do things the Standard Way(tm) and
> conform and fit in than to actually get something working, or to learn
> or accomplish things on your own.

Actually, it is important to understand standards and to adhere to
common conventions and best practices.  Just like the idea of Patterns
helps everyone communicate better, so does using the same approach to
solving the same problems. "I used the State pattern" is a whole lot
more concise than "I used an object that describes this other objects
current state and defines behaviors based on the state."   Most
developers will see your use of ClassLoader.getResource, and know how
to handle, most will see your current solution and say "WTF?".


> 7. A simple solution is usually wrong; a complicated one that involves
> at least two completely new build tools or distribution tools is
> invariably better.

Actually, I think you've come up with a complicated solution.
  Step 1, convert image to XPM,
  Step 2, run some tool to convert it to a class file.
  Step 3, move the class file into the correct place.
  Step 4, use some uncommon third party tool to load and convert the
class's data..
  Step 5, Fix the third party tool, because it was broken.
  Step 6, Fix the third party tool again, because it was broken in
another way.

The way that most of us have suggested takes this form:
  Step 1, move or copy your image into a directory in your project
  Step 2, use ClassLoader.getResource() to retrieve the resource
  Step 3, use standard Sun class (java.* and javax.*) to load the
resource as an image

>
> Allrighty then ...

Yeah, Alrighty then.

If you're not going to take the advice of people on comp.lang.java.*,
then I suggest you stop wasting your time and ours.

There are a lot of smart people here who take time out of there day to
help people. If all you want to do is come up with your own way, and
then blame the standard library when you encounter a bug, be my guest.
Just don't waste MY time doing it.

Joe Attardi wrote:
> On Nov 21, 11:06 am, "Twisted" <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > "I'm sorry you..." is not (and never is) a genuine apology
> I wasn't apologizing. I was expressing regret that you are
> misinterpreting the advice we are giving you.

That might have something to do with the tone and attitude expressed by
this "advice".

> You're kidding, right? Lots of work? The approach you are describing
> sounds like it's more work. Expensive tools? Yeah, Ant is free, so
> there goes that.

Well, that's good to know. Let's actually compare work shall we?
Method 1 involved: getting a couple of class files, editing one of them
to fix a simple bug, and compiling.
Method 2 would have involved: learning a chunk of new API and either
figuring out how to get Eclipse to tell an app where to find resources
when it's run in the development environment rather than from a final
packaging or building a jar for every edit-test-debug cycle.
Method 3 would have entailed all of the things mentioned in Method 2,
plus obtaining a new tool, learning how to use *that*, and possibly
additional things.

Advantage of method 1: simple and straightforward and quick. (It took
maybe half an hour.)
Advantages of methods 2 and 3: it sounds like they scale better once
you have lots of resources, and resources that shouldn't be hard-coded
into the binaries (such as localizable strings). Once those conditions
are met, the scaling and other issues of the first method outweigh the
additional complications and training involved in employing method 2 or
method 3.

A cost-benefit analysis clearly shows that I'm not wrong -- and neither
are you. Different conditions and circumstances warrant the choice of
different tools. On the other hand, anyone advocating a
one-size-fits-all approach that mandates always solving a certain class
of problem with one specific tool in the One True Way clearly *is*
wrong.

It seems a significant cause of the recent *ahem* controversy here has
been the unstated assumption many people have made that if someone
isn't doing it the same way they personally would, then that someone is
necessarily doing it wrong.

> It's not that there's one and only one way and any independent thought
> is shunned. But for a simple case like an application's icon, there is
> a tried and true method for doing it.

I find it curious that this "tried and true" method was not the first
relevant Google result for the topic, while the method you deride
*was*.

> It makes sense. You say it's not
> worth it because you only have one image. What about designing for
> extensibility?

That's one I'll cross when I come to it, of course. Perhaps you forget
the old adage YAGNI -- "you ain't gonna need it". Overdesigning is a
frequent source of missed deadlines, bloated budgets, and yes, even
bugs.

> These replies have not been hostile, at least no more than yours have
> been. You asked advice, and we gave it. People have a bad habit of
> reacting negatively to advice if it doesn't coincide with what they
> initially thought - this is not a flame, it's an observation. I do it
> too; everybody does it at times.

The interesting thing is that people feel the need to "advise" me on
how to solve a problem I *already solved*, two days ago now.

> But please, before you ignore all the good advice that's been given,
> really think about what advantage your approach has. And don't be so
> hostile just because people don't agree with your approach.

Me, hostile? I've only reacted negatively to hostility expressed by
others.
If anyone wants to point me to a quick tutorial on managing external
resources that explains how exactly to make Eclipse hide any underlying
complications from you so that you can focus on doing *actual
programming*, I'll bookmark it for future reference. Anything that
involves an extra, manual build-Jar step on every edit-test-debug cycle
is, of course, right out.

> And what's with The Capitalized Phrases and random (tm) ?

Didn't you hear? They're De Rigeur(tm) when discussing certain things
(and certain *attitudes*) on the net.

Perhaps you didn't Get the Memo(tm). ;)

Larry Barowski wrote:
> "Twisted" <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1164125197.063890.128970@j44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> > 3. All of the replies appear to require additional tools (most commonly
> > Ant).
>
> No they don't. Whatever tool you're using to jar up your
> project <process terminated>

And another one manages to miss the mark by a country klick.

I'm not using *any* tool to jar up my project -- not yet, anyway. It's
still in early development. There's working runnable code, sure, but
nothing along the lines of installers, jars, or other
distribution-oriented work done yet! So anything that depends on the
existence of such a thing is going to break at this point.

The graphic would need to be located somewhere on, apparently, the
class path. Somewhere the app will find it when run in my development
environment, and simultaneously where Eclipse would know to copy it
into any jar I end up building. Perhaps there's some simple way to
configure an Eclipse project with a directory to hold external
resources for them to be treated this way automagically; if so, I
haven't run across it yet. I suppose I could google some more or browse
the documentation, now that I know there might be such a feature in
there somewhere.

One thing that I find a recurring problem in life generally, and in any
tech-related or net-involving thing particularly, is this sequence of
events:
1. There's something that would be useful to you, if you only knew it
even existed.
2. Eventually you need to accomplish a goal that this "something" could
be handy for, but not knowing about it you can only perform a general
search whose keywords stem from the goal you seek, invent a solution
yourself, or similarly.
3. The "something" does not crop up as a result of the search in event
2, nor does it get mentioned initially in response to queries you made
to actual human beings. (In this case, there *was* no initial response
to queries I made. Only after I'd gotten the darn thing working and
announced this fact did everyone and his brother pop out of the
woodwork to flame me for having done so without their advice!)
4. Of course, "everyone" suddenly pops up after the fact and mentions
the "something", often assuming a criticizing or hostile tone as if
it's somehow your fault that you didn't pop out of your mother's womb
already knowing about the "something" just in case, or somehow your
fault that Google couldn't find it, or somehow your fault that you
didn't know the magic keywords that would have found it (even though
there's no reason those keywords would have occurred to you given your
state of knowledge and goals at the time -- in this case, it sounds
like "jar" would have had to be a keyword, but I am nowhere near the
deployment stage where it would even occur to me to use a keyword
related to packaging and distribution, assuming it *ever* would when
the problem prompting me to perform a search is a "how do I make my
code do X?" rather than a "how do I distribute this thing in a
standalone package that any idiot can install?" type of question.)

I've seen this same syndrome time and again. The two separate
underlying causes seem to be:
1. Web sites and similar with the "preferred" solution seem to arise as
highly relevant search results only for fairly narrow queries that will
probably only be entered by someone who already knows about that
solution, but seeks to either refer someone else to it or brush up on
some specifics. Someone who knows the *problem* but not the specific
*solution* won't find it with a Google search, because the keywords
predominating on the Web page describe the solution more than they
describe the problem it solves. (The page should describe both.) Also,
the page may describe the solution and a specific problem it solves,
but it's a "preferred" solution to other problems that are not also
described on the page in question, and the page gets a poor search
ranking on queries related to these problems as a result.
2. People assume that if you don't know about the "preferred" solution
then you're an idiot and behave accordingly. Well, actually, they don't
behave accordingly -- even a genuine idiot should be treated with some
respect rather than flamed to kingdom come for such heinous acts as
*actually trying to solve a problem on their own after failing to get a
response to a request for assistance*, of all things. :)

I think number 1 is actually the bigger problem; if it were fixed, then
at least the only people nailed by number 2 would be the ones that
didn't so much as try one or two searches first. But as it stands, we
have a bigger problem. It may be a problem with the way Web sites are
written and SEO'd these days; but I'm guessing it's more a problem with
the search engines themselves. We need a next-generation search that's
smarter about finding relevant results for "how do I?" queries somehow.
I leave its implementation as an exercise for the reader. :)

"Twisted" <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1164064004.159314.219250@h54g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>I find the phenomenon of topic drift curious. There seems to be a
> recurrent pattern in this group in which a person creates an initial
> topic of some Java related sort or another and the topic quickly drifts
> to criticism and "bashing" of the person that started the thread.

    It doesn't happen to everyone who posts here, but it does seem to happen 
to a lot of your posts, so maybe there's something about the style of your 
writing that attracts these responses. For example, in one of your posts, 
you wrote "I may have discovered another bug in the 1.6.0 release candidate
library implementation." which sounded a bit on the arrogant side to me.

    You also seem to think this newsgroup is a lot more social than I think 
it is. You've told two stories about how your browser has misbehaved, 
perhaps thinking it exposes your human side, allowing us to relate and 
establish some camaderie, but in my mind, I figure most people are waiting 
for you to get to the point, so they can answer your Java question. I didn't 
say anything (until now) 'cause it really wasn't my place to do so, and 
because maybe you're right and I'm wrong (about the socialness of this 
group).

    I mention it now to advise you to not takes things too personally. 
People are posting answers here, not only for you, but for future readers 
who, perhaps months from now, will have the same problem you're having, and 
will search the google archives for an answer and find this post. It's great 
that you got an answer that works for you, but the people here want to make 
sure that the future readers will understand that there's a conventional, 
"standard" solution for this problem, and that it's better than your 
solution for certain situations.

    Of course, these people, being human, have some emotional attachment to 
their solutions. They downplay the reasons why your solution might be better 
than theirs. IMHO, if you're happy with your solution, stick with it. If 
later on, you start having problems with your solution, come back and 
re-read this thread, and see if the alternatives proposed here address some 
of those problems.

    I think all the benefits of using the classloader to load the image have 
been said. Any future person reading this thread will be able to make an 
informed decision. In Twisted's particular case, (s)he prefers hardcoding 
the image. You might think that's a really dumb choice, but hey: people are 
free to make dumb choices if they want to, right?

    - Oliver 

On Nov 21, 12:31 pm, "Twisted" <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Method 1 involved: getting a couple of class files, editing one of them
> to fix a simple bug, and compiling.
> Method 2 would have involved: learning a chunk of new API and either
> figuring out how to get Eclipse to tell an app where to find resources
> when it's run in the development environment rather than from a final
> packaging or building a jar for every edit-test-debug cycle.
> Method 3 would have entailed all of the things mentioned in Method 2,
> plus obtaining a new tool, learning how to use *that*, and possibly
> additional things.
You insist on continuing to exaggerate the method we're suggesting.

You don't have to tell the app where to find resources. You simply put
it in the classpath. Whether that's inside a JAR file when you deploy,
or simply inside your class directories, i.e. classes/.

> Advantage of method 1: simple and straightforward and quick. (It took
> maybe half an hour.)
Straightforward and quick? As an earlier poster pointed out, this is
the procedure you've told us you are following:
   Step 1, convert image to XPM,
  Step 2, run some tool to convert it to a class file.
  Step 3, move the class file into the correct place.
  Step 4, use some uncommon third party tool to load and convert the
class's data..
  Step 5, Fix the third party tool, because it was broken.
  Step 6, Fix the third party tool again, because it was broken in
another way.

How is this simple and straightforward?

> I find it curious that this "tried and true" method was not the first
> relevant Google result for the topic, while the method you deride
> *was*.
Because we all know the Google ranking algorithms can determine best
practices for software development.

> Overdesigning is a
> frequent source of missed deadlines, bloated budgets, and yes, even
> bugs.
None of which are an issue with the very simple approach advocated by
myself and others in this thread.

> If anyone wants to point me to a quick tutorial on managing external
> resources that explains how exactly to make Eclipse hide any underlying
> complications from you so that you can focus on doing *actual
> programming*, I'll bookmark it for future reference. Anything that
> involves an extra, manual build-Jar step on every edit-test-debug cycle
> is, of course, right out.
Again you are exaggerating the process we are recommending here.
Eclipse has nothing to do with it. And using the classloader to load
resources such as images is *actual programming*, I'd be curious to see
why you don't see it that way. You don't have to build a JAR file every
edit-test-debug cycle, as we have said several times now. It just needs
to be in your classpath.

> Didn't you hear? They're De Rigeur(tm) when discussing certain things (and certain *attitudes*) on the net.
No, not really.

I'm trying to understand here. You have no problem hacking some third
party class, and transforming a simple icon image to a weird format,
but you don't feel like using something that's built in to the JVM
(classloader) for this very purpose? You are trying to re-invent the
wheel. External resources like strings, images, etc. can be loaded by
the classloader so that you don't have to worry about where it's
installed or how it's deployed, which I believe was your original
problem.
 
-- 
jpa

On Nov 21, 6:48 pm, "Twisted" <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote:

Many words to cover up that you have no fucking clue.

On Tue, 21 Nov 2006 14:32:55 -0000, Twisted <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote:

> Ian Wilson wrote:
>> You must be aware that Eclipse has a wizard for creating Jars. I find it
>>   a lot less complex than your method of encoding image data within
>> class files seems.
>
> Create a jar every edit-test-debug cycle? That adds up when you are
> rapidly tweaking and adjusting something. As opposed to something you
> can just "set and forget".

It should take less than a second to create a JAR file, unless you have  
hundreds of classes in it or a very slow machine.  It should also be  
trivial to make it part of the automated build process even if you are not  
using Ant.

One advantage of building the JAR every time is that you will be testing  
the build that you will eventually deploy, rather than running from a  
classes directory that won't be deployed.  With a JAR file you don't have  
to worry about setting a classpath to run your program and both the main  
class and any dependent JAR files can be specified in the manifest.

The problem I see with your approach is there is a lot more work if you  
want to change the image.  This might not be a problem right now but is  
something to keep in mind.

Dan.

-- 
Daniel Dyer
http://www.uncommons.org

Daniel Pitts wrote:
> I see quite a few links to ClassLoader.getResource, hmm, how about
> that.

For a query of "java resource loading", not "java icon loading" which
is one of the ones I used, and other similar ones.

It is not exactly fair to fault me for not using the exact query you
just used. Also, there's the factor that you know exactly what answer
you're looking for, so a) when you tried one related query and didn't
get it, you tried more queries and posted one that produced the planned
conclusion, and b) you recognized the significance of
"ClassLoader.getResource" when you saw it in excerpts by search hits,
whereas I went by the text in the excerpts in deciding what looked like
a promising result.

This supports my conclusion that one frequent cause of problems is that
search engines work mainly when you already know, in detail, exactly
what you're looking for. It's easy to find Porsches with it; hard to
find a car recommendation for a given requirement and budget. Easy to
find ClassLoader.getResource, hard to find "how to incorporate
application icons portably in Java". Etc.

Search engines then end up good for finding references for stuff you
already know, or detailed information on something you vaguely remember
but already had encountered; much harder for answering questions where
you don't already have a good idea of (at least part of) the answer. In
fact, there seem to be three levels of difficulty:

* Digging up references to something you already know, or the
faq/manual/whatever for something you already use: easy. Some questions
you're unsure of too -- was xyz play by Shakespeare? What else did he
write? Where are certain places, cities and such? Who first said
<quotation>? If you have an exact name for something, and it's THE name
rather than one of many choices, it's definitely easier.
* More difficult: answering questions you can state in plain English,
but for which pretty much every key word has many synonyms and the
proper names involved (in our example, just Java) are not sufficient to
narrow things down much ("Java" by itself still leaves a huge body of
subject matter). This can especially be the case if you have a specific
problem to solve and phrase your query in its terms, and the ideal #1
search result solves a general class of similar problems in more
general terms, resulting in a much shoddier result ranking. In my case,
the answer you think I should have gotten probably was ranked
#3,000,000 or so. Even if it was ranked #3, the text excerpt mustn't
have seemed as relevant as for one of the other top ten. And of course
if there are two solutions of which one is (arguably) superior, it's
still the one that someone finds *first* that gets implemented, as a
rule. :)
* Most difficult: anything whose "query" isn't even translatable into
words. The ones that seem to come up the most are "put a name to this
place/face" and "find pictures like this". The latter has come some
distance in recent times, thanks to large image databases at Google and
elsewhere; *if* you can describe what you're looking for in words and
*if* a picture has been put on the web somewhere with those same words
in close proximity, you stand a chance. Finding more pictures of
something you can hang an unambiguous proper name (rather than a
description) on works best, which often reduces to the first of the two
items I mentioned: putting a name to something you've seen that was
not, however, conveniently labeled with it.

Now search engine technology is one of my interests, so I've even
recently put these last cases to a test of sorts, or recent search
engines to a test on them, mainly Google Image Search. I had some
photographs of unidentified skyscrapers and architecture, and also some
of celebrities, for some of which I had good guesses and for others of
which I didn't. The former, when the guess was accurate, were fairly
easy to confirm; the latter proved well-nigh impossible. For the
former, the guess would turn into a query and a search; if the image or
one very like it cropped up in the results it was likely the guess was
correct, and more so if there were multiple hits on that same image.
For the latter, random stab guessing sometimes worked. I found that it
was easier to nail down architecture in that case -- queries for
"famous skyscraper" and similar turned up a hit within a page or two
for many, and the link led to an identification that could be confirmed
from a couple other sources easily thereafter. Celebrities on the other
hand appear to be a dime a dozen, whatever salaries they command from
Hollywood and elsewhere. It's even worse than that -- rather than a
query analogous to "famous skyscraper" (say "blonde actress") turning
up thousands of hits with the first occurrence of a particular one
hundreds of hits down from the top, such queries actually turn up a
fairly limited selection that can miss some entirely, because where the
images occur they are described in more specific terms, usually with a
proper name. In fact, to ID unknown celebrities it is more useful to
put a description in a text search, and generate guesses that way, then
plug those into an image search.

Of course, I've heard that face recognition is coming soon to a search
engine near you, although eventually we need tools that can more
generally parse images to generate some keywords (for example, by
reducing an image to a 16-color VGA palette and pixel-counting you can
compute reasonable weightings against keywords like "red", "green",
"dark", and so forth; not that any of the major image search engines
appear to do even that much). And, of course, until then putting a
paragraph-length description next to every image on the internet would
help tremendously -- not only for search engines, but in providing an
alternative for visually impaired humans in the form of a description
they can try to visualize, much the way novels without illustrations
have to present their characters and settings. And of course, this is
getting off-topic...

Search difficulty category number two is what is of more concern right
here and now, namely, being able to find a general result from a
more-specific query, and being able to find something you can describe
but can't name (which would go a long way towards helping in area #3,
too, for that matter). Google has some features that help here, for
instance in that it seems to conflate variant spellings and detect
possible typos. Build in a thesaurus and grammar awareness and you
might be getting somewhere -- for example, homographs such as "lead"
(the heavy toxic metal) and "lead" (as in the blind leading the blind)
can be distinguished by their part of speech (one is a noun and one is
a verb in this example), and synonyms can be fuzzy-matched (so that for
a query of "red" the word "red" gets a strong hit, but "maroon" or
"mauve" counts for something rather than nothing; "automobile" and
"car" may be treated almost identically, with fractional preference
being given to hits that use the exact word that's in the query instead
of the other one).

> Was this in a forum? Just because its on suns site doesn't mean its
> reliable.

It looked like a developer network article rather than a joe random
forum posting to me. Also, considering that *it bloody worked* (with a
little tweaking) it doesn't seem to have been "unreliable" by most sane
definitions of the term.

> Actually, most of them suggested using ClassLoader.getResource, and
> that if you thought it was difficult to create jar files, try using ant
> instead.  The suggestion may have been off topic, but it was only meant
> to help.

I'm sure that when it comes time to distribute something, creating jar
files won't prove too difficult. But I'm leery of creating something
some of whose functionality is dependent on being in a deployment
rather than a development environment. Understandably so! Having to
bundle, install, test, debug, edit rather than just test, debug, edit
would slow down the testing/tweaking/improvement cycle drastically. And
would it even be possible to run it from a jar yet attach a debugger?
If not, then there could be functionality and code paths that could
only run without the debugger attached, making the debugging of those
code paths a history refresher on Victorian software development
methodologies. Not exactly what I am looking for in the way of
continuing education right now.

> > 5. The very last place to go for trustworthy information on doing stuff
> > in Java is www.sun.com. Google and wikipedia must also be stringently
> > avoided.
>
> This seems to be what you do, I usually get my information from Google,
> or perhaps a book written on the subject.

Somebody obviously hasn't been reading this thread. Which is fine,
except that the same somebody nonetheless posted an opinion into the
thread in question, and a strong one at that.

In the first few posts it becomes apparent that I made some Google
searches that turned up nothing that *looked* relevant (to someone who
didn't already know what they were looking for, anyway -- and those are
the someones good search results are most needed by), then posted here,
then after a while passed without responses tried some more Google
searches and eventually got a hit that led to a method *that worked*.

In other words, I ended up solving my problem with Google, contrary to
what you suggest, and the suggestion that I solved it "wrong" is
therefore a suggestion that I shouldn't have used Google, given what
the result was when I did, and that that result is supposedly "wrong"
(despite having actually worked).

As for "books written on the subject", that is an option for someone
with a higher budget than I. Keep your recommendations and
(revenue-generating, no doubt) Amazon links to yourself, please. And
don't you *dare* suggest that "if you can't afford xyz, you shouldn't
touch any development tool with a ten foot pole", lest I call you a
filthy capitalist pig that discriminates against the poor and supports
raising the barrier to entry to entrepreneurial activities to protect
an incumbent CEO class from any risk of ever facing something
resembling actual competition, then launch into a lengthy political
diatribe. (DISCLAIMER: I am not a communist. I just oppose fiscal
policies that seem designed to raise artificial barriers in the face of
the lower classes to keep them from ever climbing up and threatening to
unseat the incumbents. In other words, I am better described as
capitalist but anti-fascist and somewhat libertarian-leaning.)

> Actually, it is important to understand standards and to adhere to
> common conventions and best practices.

Even ones that are documented either a) nowhere or at least b) nowhere
you can find them if you don't already know them? Curious.

> Actually, I think you've come up with a complicated solution.
>   Step 1, convert image to XPM,
>   Step 2, run some tool to convert it to a class file.
>   Step 3, move the class file into the correct place.
>   Step 4, use some uncommon third party tool to load and convert the
> class's data..
>   Step 5, Fix the third party tool, because it was broken.
>   Step 6, Fix the third party tool again, because it was broken in
> another way.

All the complication in question is up-front, at development time. Once
solved, it stays solved, and there's no runtime complication involving
I/O that can fail. If the binaries loaded, it will work. If they
didn't, then there are bigger problems anyway.

> The way that most of us have suggested takes this form:
>   Step 1, move or copy your image into a directory in your project

What directory? How do I make it work seamlessly whether it's in the
development environment or the deployment one? None of that has yet
been explained to my satisfaction; all I've seen are vague assurances
that this can be done, without any detail.

This directory is apparently to be on the class path, which suggests
one of two consequences. Either every project winds up adding another
dir to the class path, or all the files from every project end up in a
single dir jumbled together (and then when one project is packaged, you
risk including extra files that waste disk space or, in trying to avoid
that, accidentally omitting a file that is actually needed).

> If you're not going to take the advice of people on comp.lang.java.*

I didn't say I wouldn't. I did say I wouldn't follow it *blindly*, and
certainly that I won't follow "advice" that consists of vague
suggestions lacking detail in crucial areas. "Get and use tool X"
without any real detail (not so much as the URL where the tool's
official Web page resides, assuming it even has one) and "Do this"
suggestions that leave a lot of questions that, when asked, go
unanswered except with flamage, do not exactly encourage me to be
trusting.

I still haven't heard anyone tell me any of the following, which is
behavior that I find suspicious:
* From those who recommended getting Ant, its official URL at minimum.
* Regarding getResource, the exact way to have the resource found when
the app is tested in the development environment *without* either
jumbling every project together *or* overloading the system class path
with a sub directory for every project.
* Regarding getResource, the exact way to have that same resource
automatically included into a jar when one is built, when the time
comes. One person suggested that Eclipse can be made to do this,
without saying anything in detail about how. Others suggested Ant would
be needed, without saying anything in detail about how to do it with
Ant.

Unfortunately, I have no confidence that I can answer those questions
to your satisfaction purely by my own research and wits. I am somewhat
more confident that I can answer them to *my* satisfaction that way,
mind you; but the events of this thread make it clear that even if I
do, the method I come up with via my own research efforts might
nonetheless be decried as "wrong" and lambasted with what seems to be
almost *religious* fervor...

My suggestion to you is that if you want me to answer those questions
to your satisfaction (rather than just to mine) then you should give me
the answers you want me to end up coming up with. Or is this your
standard MO -- tell someone nothing until they try to solve the problem
themselves, and then criticise them like crazy for all of the
(perceived) shortcomings of their solution?

Oliver Wong wrote:
>     It doesn't happen to everyone who posts here, but it does seem to happen
> to a lot of your posts, so maybe there's something about the style of your
> writing that attracts these responses.

Well, let's see ... what do I do differently?

Oh yeah, of course. When I ask a question I'm asking a question rather
than engaging in some kind of social ritual. What I expect is an answer
rather than a question or riddle of some kind. Also, when challenged by
the alpha male I tell them to go shove it or simply ignore them rather
than bow down in submission and make all of the right noises, because
as I said, I didn't come here to engage in some kind of social ritual.
I'm not actually challenging you for dominance; I consider dominance in
whatever little hierarchy you have here to be completely irrelevant to
my goals, and you're welcome to keep it as long as you don't insist on
involving me in submission rituals of some kind or another just to keep
your ego well-fed. I am simply looking for the answer to a question.
And oh, yes, that means that when what I get is not in the form of an
answer, I pointedly remind people that this is not Jeopardy! and you
most emphatically do not have to phrase your response in the form of a
question.

Any questions? :)

> For example, in one of your posts,
> you wrote "I may have discovered another bug in the 1.6.0 release candidate
> library implementation." which sounded a bit on the arrogant side to me.

"I have discovered a bug" might be; "I may have" certainly is not, and
shouldn't be considered even to be particularly contentious considering
that it *is* beta software we're talking about.

>     You also seem to think this newsgroup is a lot more social than I think
> it is.

Curious -- it's you people that want me, the newbie, to bow down
submissively and act all meek and awed around your alpha males and
never, ever, question them, and generally to answer any question put to
me while you reserve the right to ignore mine; I'm the one treating
this as a medium of information exchange rather than yet another venue
in which to vie for the Testosterone Junkie of the Month Award(tm).

> You've told two stories about how your browser has misbehaved

Misbehavior triggered by encountering a Java applet, while researching
a Java-related issue. Hardly offtopic. Far less so than, say, personal
criticisms directed against particular posters in this newsgroup would
be, hm?

> because maybe you're right and I'm wrong (about the socialness of this
> group).

Someone is actually man enough to admit that they may be wrong? Wow.
Maybe I misjudged ... some of you.

>     I mention it now to advise you to not takes things too personally.

Suggestions that implicitly question my competence notwithstanding, I
presume?

> People are posting answers here, not only for you, but for future readers
> who, perhaps months from now, will have the same problem you're having, and
> will search the google archives for an answer and find this post. It's great
> that you got an answer that works for you, but the people here want to make
> sure that the future readers will understand that there's a conventional,
> "standard" solution for this problem, and that it's better than your
> solution for certain situations.

Another surprise -- you said "for certain situations"! OK, you
definitely scored some points on that one. OTOH, I'm still awaiting
some details regarding this "standard" solution, in the form either of
the details themselves or a (safe) URL (preferably a *.sun.com URL,
which obviously would carry extra credibility).

>     Of course, these people, being human, have some emotional attachment to
> their solutions.

As, I suppose, might I -- having found something and even fixed a bug
in it myself is definitely more of an accomplishment than having
followed a rote, canned routine...

> They downplay the reasons why your solution might be better
> than theirs. IMHO, if you're happy with your solution, stick with it. If
> later on, you start having problems with your solution, come back and
> re-read this thread, and see if the alternatives proposed here address some
> of those problems.

I'm aware of its limitations -- both in scaling, and in cases where
there are direct advantages to separating a resource from the core
binaries. Those limitations might apply to some stuff in the future, at
which time I might as well move the icon (which would be easy) to the
same place as this hypothetical other stuff. Until then, YAGNI appears
to apply. Also, of course, I'm still missing the information that
people seem to assume I either have or could easily find. Information I
might add that they apparently assumed I could easily find once before,
an assumption that proved to be wrong once before. I've no guarantee
that plugging in "getResource" and following the first plausible
instructions I see won't *also* result in disapproval stemming from
further decision branches. Researching it myself led to a disapproved
result once, so obviously it's plausible that it may do so again.

[Snip remaining paragraph, which seems to slide a bit and suggest,
without coming out and stating, a possible insult.]

Twisted wrote on 21.11.2006 15:27:
> Thomas Kellerer wrote:
>> Hmm. Netbeans does that automatically for me. I have all my resource in my Java
>> source directory (gif, properties, xml and txt files).
> 
> Beans, net or otherwise, are outside my scope at least right now.
> 

NetBeans is an IDE just like Eclipse...

Joe Attardi wrote:
> On Nov 21, 12:31 pm, "Twisted" <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Method 1 involved: getting a couple of class files, editing one of them
> > to fix a simple bug, and compiling.
> > Method 2 would have involved: learning a chunk of new API and either
> > figuring out how to get Eclipse to tell an app where to find resources
> > when it's run in the development environment rather than from a final
> > packaging or building a jar for every edit-test-debug cycle.
> > Method 3 would have entailed all of the things mentioned in Method 2,
> > plus obtaining a new tool, learning how to use *that*, and possibly
> > additional things.
> You insist on continuing to exaggerate the method we're suggesting.

Actually, it is you who are underestimating what is involved. You are
to be forgiven of course -- if this is a method you are intimately
familiar with, it will come easily and naturally; the research and
suchlike that I mention is a one-time cost and in your case it's a sunk
cost, probably years ago. So you probably underestimate that cost's
effect in influencing my decisions, since it no longer has any
influence on yours.

> You don't have to tell the app where to find resources. You simply put
> it in the classpath. Whether that's inside a JAR file when you deploy,
> or simply inside your class directories, i.e. classes/.

This has been mentioned time and again, but it leads to the obvious
issue that either multiple projects clutter the one directory with
their resources, or each project needs its own, and each directory
needs to be added to the class path on the development system. I can
easily see that hitting limits, especially on Windows systems which
have positively archaic limits on path lengths, when many projects have
been/are being developed on one computer.

That contention has yet to be addressed by anyone with any suggestions,
corrected misconceptions, or whatnot. The impression I have is that
each project needs its own resource directory, added to the class path
on the development system, and manually packaged as an extra step at
distribution time, absent additional investment in tools and learning.

> How is this simple and straightforward?

It involved coding, which I know, exporting from photoshop, which I
know, and not fiddling with additional, formerly unfamiliar build tools
or anything of that nature.

> > I find it curious that this "tried and true" method was not the first
> > relevant Google result for the topic, while the method you deride
> > *was*.
> Because we all know the Google ranking algorithms can determine best
> practices for software development.

Determine, no; discover, yes. Supposedly. I mean if I can't find a
"standard" answer with Google, then what am I expected to do? Post
every decision and its alternatives here and wait (perhaps hours or
even days) for you guys to tell me the "correct" answer? And if there's
more than one, and they differ, then what?

> None of which are an issue with the very simple approach advocated by
> myself and others in this thread.

Adding additional I/O work and dependencies on external files to the
startup is a "very simple approach"? By what measurement of "simple"?
Changing the icon to be done your way is equivalent to externalizing
some strings, say for localizability. It adds complexity and potential
points of failure (what does the app do for recovery if, at runtime, it
can't find the strings? this failure can't happen for literals but can
for externalized strings), and requires additional tools and knowledge
of the coder versus including them literally. Without a corresponding
benefit (e.g. localizability) why bother?

> Again you are exaggerating the process we are recommending here.
> Eclipse has nothing to do with it. And using the classloader to load
> resources such as images is *actual programming*, I'd be curious to see
> why you don't see it that way.

That part is; figuring out the additional tool and path management
stuff involved, however, isn't.

> You don't have to build a JAR file every
> edit-test-debug cycle, as we have said several times now. It just needs
> to be in your classpath.

That alternative, as I'm sure I mentioned at least once before, appears
to lead to either of two results: classpath bloat or a jumble of
resources for multiple projects in one directory. Neither seems
desirable to me.

> I'm trying to understand here. You have no problem hacking some third
> party class, and transforming a simple icon image to a weird format,
> but you don't feel like using something that's built in to the JVM
> (classloader) for this very purpose? You are trying to re-invent the
> wheel. External resources like strings, images, etc. can be loaded by
> the classloader so that you don't have to worry about where it's
> installed or how it's deployed, which I believe was your original
> problem.

It's too bad there seem to be unanswered questions and apparent
problems with this approach, to wit, the above jumble/bloat alternative.

PofN wrote:
> On Nov 21, 6:48 pm, "Twisted" <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Many words to cover up that you have no fucking clue.

One word to cover up you:

PLONK!

Daniel Dyer wrote:
> It should take less than a second to create a JAR file, unless you have
> hundreds of classes in it or a very slow machine.  It should also be
> trivial to make it part of the automated build process even if you are not
> using Ant.

That sounds like fun. Every time I edit the code and Eclipse recompiles
it for me, the jar is rebuilt and the icon I'd inserted into it
disappears, and I need to reinsert it before the next test run? Unless
of course there's some way to tell it to keep the icon. I'd still be
leery of its only home being in the jar; properly, files like that are
part of the source code too and should be housed with it and just
*copied* into the jar. Preferably automatically. Now maybe this can be
done, but if so, nobody has bothered to tell me so, or suggest how.

> The problem I see with your approach is there is a lot more work if you
> want to change the image.  This might not be a problem right now but is
> something to keep in mind.

I changed it several times, tweaking it, without difficulty last night
-- it's a matter of re-exporting the image, then pasting in a different
string array literal, and that's all. Now just re-exporting the image
(to some classpath directory) would shave a little off that, but in
return I now have to:
* Find out how to make it get included in the jar automatically;
* Find out how to make it build the jar for every test automatically;
* Have the application do I/O and error recovery on startup, which it
didn't previously have to do;
* Now that it can die at startup with a file not found or whatever
error, make it gracefully report the problem when it does so, and
suggest fixes;
* Worry about end-users' inevitably encountering said problem and
having no clue anyway how to find the file and put it where it needs to
be or otherwise fix whatever went wrong -- likely, their recourse will
have to be to reinstall the app. Yuck! I'll be looking an awful lot
like Microsoft then -- my stuff stops working and has to be reinstalled
and such!

Twisted wrote:
> Daniel Pitts wrote:
>> I see quite a few links to ClassLoader.getResource, hmm, how about
>> that.
>
> For a query of "java resource loading", not "java icon loading" which
> is one of the ones I used, and other similar ones.
>
> It is not exactly fair to fault me for not using the exact query you
> just used. Also, there's the factor that you know exactly what answer
> you're looking for, so a) when you tried one related query and didn't
> get it, you tried more queries and posted one that produced the
> planned conclusion, and b) you recognized the significance of
> "ClassLoader.getResource" when you saw it in excerpts by search hits,
> whereas I went by the text in the excerpts in deciding what looked
> like a promising result.
>
> This supports my conclusion that one frequent cause of problems is
> that search engines work mainly when you already know, in detail,
> exactly what you're looking for. It's easy to find Porsches with it;
> hard to find a car recommendation for a given requirement and budget.
> Easy to find ClassLoader.getResource, hard to find "how to incorporate
> application icons portably in Java". Etc.

eh...?

Goggle: image icon load java applet

First link

Doesn't sound like a query where I know about .getResource() does it?

This is more a question of spoonfeeding the search-engines when you
don't know exactly what you're looking for.

-- 
Dag.

You should read this:
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/components/icon.html#getresource

-- 
Dag.

"Twisted" <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1164131339.386451.110880@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> Larry Barowski wrote:
>> "Twisted" <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:1164125197.063890.128970@j44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>> > 3. All of the replies appear to require additional tools (most commonly
>> > Ant).
>>
>> No they don't. Whatever tool you're using to jar up your
>> project <process terminated>
>
> And another one manages to miss the mark by a country klick.
>
> I'm not using *any* tool to jar up my project -- not yet, anyway.

Apparently you didn't read the third sentence of my post. If
you're not using a jar file, just put the image file somewhere
in with the class files. getResource() will find it. It doesn't
matter that you are using Eclipse. 

"Twisted" <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1164154481.899418.303560@j44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> * Find out how to make it get included in the jar automatically;

Something you only need to find out once. I don't use Eclipse,
but I took a quick look and found that if the image file is added
to the project, it will be included in the jar file by default.

> * Find out how to make it build the jar for every test automatically;

There is no need to do this. It will work when run from the
class files.

> * Have the application do I/O and error recovery on startup, which it
> didn't previously have to do;
> * Now that it can die at startup with a file not found or whatever
> error, make it gracefully report the problem when it does so, and
> suggest fixes;

Do you do I/O and error recovery for missing class files?
Just let the app die with an exception if an image file is
missing, the same as it will if a class file is missing.

> * Worry about end-users' inevitably encountering said problem and
> having no clue anyway how to find the file and put it where it needs to
> be or otherwise fix whatever went wrong -- likely, their recourse will
> have to be to reinstall the app. Yuck! I'll be looking an awful lot
> like Microsoft then -- my stuff stops working and has to be reinstalled
> and such!

Again, do you worry about this for missing class files?
If an end-user starts messing with the files in your
application's distribution, then all bets are off.

Thomas Kellerer wrote:
> Twisted wrote on 21.11.2006 15:27:
> > Thomas Kellerer wrote:
> >> Hmm. Netbeans does that automatically for me. I have all my resource in my Java
> >> source directory (gif, properties, xml and txt files).
> >
> > Beans, net or otherwise, are outside my scope at least right now.
>
> NetBeans is an IDE just like Eclipse...

Aren't beans a RAD tool? I'm allergic to RAD tools. RAD tools are
considered harmful. You probably shouldn't use RAD tools anymore -- I
think you've already taken a possibly-lethal RAD dose to the
brainstem...

Dag Sunde wrote:
> eh...?
>
> Goggle: image icon load java applet

Contrived queries where you already know exactly what you want to find
prove nothing. Particularly not when they aren't even remotely
plausible -- since I am not developing an applet, why on earth would it
occur to me to put "applet" in the query? Sheesh. At least try a
*little* harder. :)

Larry Barowski wrote:
> Apparently you didn't read the third sentence of my post. If
> you're not using a jar file, just put the image file somewhere
> in with the class files. getResource() will find it. It doesn't
> matter that you are using Eclipse.

Mixing "source" files (files I create) with object files (files the
compiler creates) is something I was taught to try to avoid, you know...

On 22.11.2006 04:52 Twisted wrote:
> Thomas Kellerer wrote:
>> Twisted wrote on 21.11.2006 15:27:
>>> Thomas Kellerer wrote:
>>>> Hmm. Netbeans does that automatically for me. I have all my resource in my Java
>>>> source directory (gif, properties, xml and txt files).
>>> Beans, net or otherwise, are outside my scope at least right now.
>> NetBeans is an IDE just like Eclipse...
> 
> Aren't beans a RAD tool? I'm allergic to RAD tools. RAD tools are
> considered harmful. You probably shouldn't use RAD tools anymore -- I
> think you've already taken a possibly-lethal RAD dose to the
> brainstem...

I'm *not* talking about RAD, I'm talking about how an IDE can actually 
support what you want to do. And I'm sure Eclipse can do the same.

Btw: NetBeans is probably (out-of-the-bxo) the most complete free IDE 
for Web Development and EJB development that you can currently get.

Thomas


-- 
It's not a RootKit - it's a Sony

Wow. I can't believe this thread is still going on.

At this point I have no clue how you still can think the classloader
method is so error-prone and/or complex. Is there something about the
classloader approach that you still do not understand? Everyone here
has explained it over and over until they are blue in the face, so I
don't think that's it.

You seem to be ignoring and/or rejecting what everyone else is saying
simply because it isn't the way you thought of to do it. It's like when
you ask someone advice on what you should get for lunch - you don't
really care much what they think, because you already made up your mind
before you even asked.

What I really don't get is why you have to be so snarky/sarcastic just
because you disagree. Instead of thinking about what is being said, you
just keep repeating the same exaggerated claims over and over, about
what a big inconvenience it will be on you and your compile-test-debug
cycle. If this is such an issue, I have to ask what the hell you are
using for a build process. Does it consist of simply typing 'javac
*.java' ? If not, then it's trivial to add another step to copy the
image(s) to the class folders.

You are right that you shouldn't mix source files with
object/class/output files. The image(s) should be in an image source
directory, img/ or something. They get copied over to the build
directory when you do a build; they now are resources in the classpath.
They haven't changed form, but in this context they aren't source files
any longer.

Windows executables aren't much different. In that case, ICO files are
embedded in the EXE as resources for icons. So this is not a novel
technique only applied by us Java folks.

And as for your other question, no, beans are not a RAD tool. If you
are thinking of a JavaBean, in its most basic form a JavaBean is
nothing more than an object with some properties, and corresponding
getXXX() and setXXX() methods for those properties. In the context of
NetBeans, it's just a name. As another poster said, NetBeans is just
another editor/IDE like Eclipse or JBuilder.

-- 
jpa

Twisted skrev:


>  Also, when challenged by
> the alpha male I tell them to go shove it ...

Or alpha female.

(Let's not, "Dis," Patricia.)

..ed

--
www.EdmundKirwan.com - Home of The Fractal Class Composition.

Download Fractality, free Java code analyzer:
www.EdmundKirwan.com/servlet/fractal/frac-page130.html

Twisted wrote:
> Dag Sunde wrote:
>> eh...?
>>
>> Goggle: image icon load java applet
>
> Contrived queries where you already know exactly what you want to find
> prove nothing. Particularly not when they aren't even remotely
> plausible -- since I am not developing an applet, why on earth would
> it occur to me to put "applet" in the query? Sheesh. At least try a
> *little* harder. :)

That was an honest attempt!
Nothing contrieved about it.

No conspiracy!

It was the first words that popped into my mind (I do mostly applety
programming).

-- 
Dag.

On Wed, 22 Nov 2006 00:08:36 -0000, Twisted <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote:

> Joe Attardi wrote:
>> You don't have to tell the app where to find resources. You simply put
>> it in the classpath. Whether that's inside a JAR file when you deploy,
>> or simply inside your class directories, i.e. classes/.
>
> This has been mentioned time and again, but it leads to the obvious
> issue that either multiple projects clutter the one directory with
> their resources, or each project needs its own, and each directory
> needs to be added to the class path on the development system. I can
> easily see that hitting limits, especially on Windows systems which
> have positively archaic limits on path lengths, when many projects have
> been/are being developed on one computer.

I agree entirely, global classpaths are a bad thing.  If you have a  
%CLASSPATH% variable that includes all classes from multiple projects,  
it's a recipe for subtle bugs.  If you have different versions of the same  
class (or different classes with the same fully-qualified name) in  
separate projects, one of your projects will break.

I'd recommend to delete the CLASSPATH environment variable and use  
project-specific classpaths instead.  One way to do this is by specifying  
the -classpath switch at runtime.  Better still, if everything is packed  
into a JAR file, then all you need to do is have that one JAR file on the  
classpath:

	java -classpath myjarfile.jar com.mydomain.MyClass

Further, if you specify the Main-Class attribute in the JAR file's  
manifest, it will be executable.  In this case, you don't have to  
explicitly specify a classpath at all:

	java -jar myjarfile.jar

> That contention has yet to be addressed by anyone with any suggestions,
> corrected misconceptions, or whatnot. The impression I have is that
> each project needs its own resource directory, added to the class path
> on the development system, and manually packaged as an extra step at
> distribution time, absent additional investment in tools and learning.

The two points I'd contend would be having to add it to the classpath on  
the development system (see above), and having to manually package the  
classes.  Automating the build is good for productivity.  It will speed up  
your edit/build/debug cycle.  Also, if you ever have to perform more than  
one action to build the project, you are introducing the possibility of  
making mistakes.  That is why so many people have been advocating the use  
of Ant.  If you don't want to use Ant, there is probably some way of  
automating the building of a JAR file from Eclipse, but I don't use  
Eclipse so I can't help there.

If you did want to give Ant a try, you could post the layout of your  
project here (i.e. the directory structure) and I (or somebody else) could  
give you a simple, working build.xml file to get you started.

> Adding additional I/O work and dependencies on external files to the
> startup is a "very simple approach"? By what measurement of "simple"?
> Changing the icon to be done your way is equivalent to externalizing
> some strings, say for localizability. It adds complexity and potential
> points of failure (what does the app do for recovery if, at runtime, it
> can't find the strings? this failure can't happen for literals but can
> for externalized strings), and requires additional tools and knowledge
> of the coder versus including them literally. Without a corresponding
> benefit (e.g. localizability) why bother?

If the resources are packaged inside a JAR file, there are no external  
files to load.  If the user has the JAR file (as they must in order to run  
the app) then they  also have the resources.

Dan.

-- 
Daniel Dyer
http://www.dandyer.co.uk

Twisted wrote:
> Daniel Dyer wrote:
> > It should take less than a second to create a JAR file, unless you have
> > hundreds of classes in it or a very slow machine.  It should also be
> > trivial to make it part of the automated build process even if you are not
> > using Ant.
>
> I'd still be
> leery of its only home being in the jar; properly, files like that are
> part of the source code too and should be housed with it and just
> *copied* into the jar. Preferably automatically. Now maybe this can be
> done, but if so, nobody has bothered to tell me so, or suggest how.

You have to recognise that there are three broad types of file that we
are discussing here, source files, compiled files, and resources.
Images, XML documents, property files etc are resources, not source
files. Your jar file can simply have a 'resources' directory with your
resource files inside and you can use
getResource("resources/myimage.gif"). If you do not have a jar file
(but I would strongly recommend it) you just make sure the resources
directory is at one of your classpath roots (which doesnt have to be
global, can be set in a start up script) and it will work just the
same.

The automatic solution you seek is ant. I can only repeat what others
have said, ant is a very worthwhile tool to add to your repotoire and
is not hard to learn at all. When you have put your ant build together
(and consider looking at open source projects for examples) you will
have grown as a developer and will wonder why you ever did it any
other way... you have my personal guarentee on that (for what it is
worth).

> > The problem I see with your approach is there is a lot more work if you
> > want to change the image.  This might not be a problem right now but is
> > something to keep in mind.
>
> I changed it several times, tweaking it, without difficulty last night
> -- it's a matter of re-exporting the image, then pasting in a different
> string array literal, and that's all.

You are in a common situation, you have a solution that works, but
others are telling you to do it another way. In software development,
"but my way works fine!" is a wonderful defence, and in your current
application, I can see no immediate reason to change.

However, recognise that your solution will not easily scale. You may
soon be working on applications where there are many non-java
resources. There many be many different people, with many different
skills working on these resources. Very quickly, you will get into a
situation where you are constantly updating these bizarre,
uninterpretable strings. You wont know which string represents which
file, you will find that you do a build and have forgotten to update
the string to the new one representing the last update your gfx
designer has made etc etc. What people are trying to tell you is, that
while you solution works functionally, it could be regarded as a bad
habit. If you break it now, and accept that while your solution is very
novel, there is a reason why the rest of the Java community uses the
provided getResource method, you will be better off in the long term...
another personal guarentee on that.

> * Find out how to make it get included in the jar automatically;

Ant

> * Find out how to make it build the jar for every test automatically;

Ant

> * Have the application do I/O and error recovery on startup, which it
> didn't previously have to do;

The fact that IOException is checked (or infact that java even has
checked exceptions) is a point of theorectical debate. It is reasonable
for your code to catch and IOException, print and error and exit. If
you get this error, somebody has tampered with the Jar file after
release. If I took a hex editor to winword.exe and removed some stuff,
I would expect it to error out also :)

> * Now that it can die at startup with a file not found or whatever
> error, make it gracefully report the problem when it does so, and
> suggest fixes;

Again, this can only happen if your users are tampering. As long as you
build your jar file and deliver it with the image inside, it will not
just out by itself.

In general, I have to say, I admire the way you stick to your guns, and
this isnt really a question of "right and wrong". It is just that there
are disadvantages to your approach that you are either unwilling or
unable to see, and advantages to getResource that you are treating in
the same way. You refuse to learn ant because it is "yet another thing"
but correct use of this tool will solve most of the problems you have.
If you are pushed for time on delivery of your current software, then
continue with your current approach, it works. You should, however, put
aside some time to see how everyone else is solving the problem. Learn,
grow and get the same satisfaction out of working with standard tools
as you did in coming up with your unconvential yet functional solution
to the problem at hand. 

I wish you luck.

Twisted wrote:
> The graphic would need to be located somewhere on, apparently, the
> class path. Somewhere the app will find it when run in my development
> environment, and simultaneously where Eclipse would know to copy it
> into any jar I end up building. 

All the above conditions are met by simply putting the icon file into 
your project.

> Perhaps there's some simple way to
> configure an Eclipse project with a directory to hold external
> resources for them to be treated this way automagically; 

There is. Its so simple I find it hard to believe you don't know of it.

> if so, I
> haven't run across it yet. 

Just right click on the project name in the Package Explorer, choose 
"new" then "folder", give it a name (e.g. "resources").

Then right-click that folder choose "import", navigate to your image and 
select it.

Done.

The "huge chunk of API" you refer to is in fact a single line of code 
that loads an image from such a folder. Easily found using Google.

This arrangement works fine just using the "Run" option in Eclipse.

If you deploy using a Jar, the code doesn't need any changes either.

Putting the image in a Jar for deployment is a matter of following a Jar 
wizard in eclipse. No change to the code. You can save the jar 
description so that repeats are right-click description and choose "Jar".

All the above I found, as a Java novice, quite easily using google and 
just playing around with eclipse.

"Thomas Kellerer" <TAAXADSCBIXW@spammotel.com> wrote in message 
news:4sibchF102cmpU1@mid.individual.net...
> On 22.11.2006 04:52 Twisted wrote:
>> Thomas Kellerer wrote:
>>> Twisted wrote on 21.11.2006 15:27:
>>>> Thomas Kellerer wrote:
>>>>> Hmm. Netbeans does that automatically for me. I have all my resource 
>>>>> in my Java
>>>>> source directory (gif, properties, xml and txt files).
>>>> Beans, net or otherwise, are outside my scope at least right now.
>>> NetBeans is an IDE just like Eclipse...
>>
>> Aren't beans a RAD tool? I'm allergic to RAD tools. RAD tools are
>> considered harmful. You probably shouldn't use RAD tools anymore -- I
>> think you've already taken a possibly-lethal RAD dose to the
>> brainstem...
>
> I'm *not* talking about RAD, I'm talking about how an IDE can actually 
> support what you want to do. And I'm sure Eclipse can do the same.

    More explicitly, beans and NetBeans are not the same thing. It sounds 
like Twisted is thinking of Beans where Thomas is talking about NetBeans.

    - Oliver 

    You seemed to have taken my post as an attack on you. That was not the 
intention.

"Twisted" <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1164153494.942122.204840@f16g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> Oliver Wong wrote:
>>     It doesn't happen to everyone who posts here, but it does seem to 
>> happen
>> to a lot of your posts, so maybe there's something about the style of 
>> your
>> writing that attracts these responses.
>
> Well, let's see ... what do I do differently?
>
> Oh yeah, of course. When I ask a question I'm asking a question rather
> than engaging in some kind of social ritual. What I expect is an answer
> rather than a question or riddle of some kind. Also, when challenged by
> the alpha male I tell them to go shove it or simply ignore them rather
> than bow down in submission and make all of the right noises, because
> as I said, I didn't come here to engage in some kind of social ritual.

    Maybe one of the things you do differently is consider certain posts to 
be a challenge from an alpha male, which causes you to react in a certain 
way, which attracts those posts you don't seem to enjoy receiving.


> I'm not actually challenging you for dominance; I consider dominance in
> whatever little hierarchy you have here to be completely irrelevant to
> my goals, and you're welcome to keep it as long as you don't insist on
> involving me in submission rituals of some kind or another just to keep
> your ego well-fed.

    Maybe one of the things you do differently is to believe that there's a 
dominance hierarchy here, among the posters.

> I am simply looking for the answer to a question.
> And oh, yes, that means that when what I get is not in the form of an
> answer, I pointedly remind people that this is not Jeopardy! and you
> most emphatically do not have to phrase your response in the form of a
> question.

    Maybe one of the things you do differently is to believe that someone 
asks you a question, they are not trying to help you.

>
> Any questions? :)

    No. I'm trying to offer you an alternative perspective to help you 
escape this problem of the perception that everyone's ganging up on you, or 
something like that. If you don't want help (perhaps because you don't think 
you have this problem), then feel free to ignore my posts.

>
>> For example, in one of your posts,
>> you wrote "I may have discovered another bug in the 1.6.0 release 
>> candidate
>> library implementation." which sounded a bit on the arrogant side to me.
>
> "I have discovered a bug" might be; "I may have" certainly is not, and
> shouldn't be considered even to be particularly contentious considering
> that it *is* beta software we're talking about.

    You may defend the logic of your choice of words all you want, but this 
does not change their emotional impact. Saying you found a bug is generally 
considered a bad idea, unless you're very confident that there is, in fact, 
a bug involved.

http://catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#id273206
<quote>
When you are having problems with a piece of software, don't claim you have 
found a bug unless you are very, very sure of your ground. Hint: unless you 
can provide a source-code patch that fixes the problem, or a regression test 
against a previous version that demonstrates incorrect behavior, you are 
probably not sure enough.
[...]
When asking your question, it is best to write as though you assume you are 
doing something wrong, even if you are privately pretty sure you have found 
an actual bug. If there really is a bug, you will hear about it in the 
answer. Play it so the maintainers will want to apologize to you if the bug 
is real, rather than so that you will owe them an apology if you have messed 
up.
</quote>

    Usually when people follow this advice (particularly in the lower 
paragraph), they tend to get the answers they want. Consider the "infinite 
loop with http requests" post at 
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.java.programmer/msg/2a0e0a602c02320c 
The poster shows his/her source code, explains why it doesn't make sense 
that the program should loop forever (How can "" not be equal to ""?), and 
then rather than ending with "Is this a bug in the JVM?" ends it with "Any 
insights would be appreciated - thanks!". And they got an answer: use 
..equals() for string comparsion, rather than ==.

>>     You also seem to think this newsgroup is a lot more social than I 
>> think
>> it is.
>
> Curious -- it's you people that want me, the newbie, to bow down
> submissively and act all meek and awed around your alpha males and
> never, ever, question them, and generally to answer any question put to
> me while you reserve the right to ignore mine; I'm the one treating
> this as a medium of information exchange rather than yet another venue
> in which to vie for the Testosterone Junkie of the Month Award(tm).

    I think you may be thinking in terms of "us (or me) versus them" where 
it's not appropriate. As hinted at above, when someone asks you a question, 
it is usually because that information is helpful in solving your problem.

>
>> You've told two stories about how your browser has misbehaved
>
> Misbehavior triggered by encountering a Java applet, while researching
> a Java-related issue. Hardly offtopic. Far less so than, say, personal
> criticisms directed against particular posters in this newsgroup would
> be, hm?

    Sorry to be blunt but IMHO, your stories are distracting and largely 
uninteresting. In one example, we were discussing 64 bit and 32 bit CPUs and 
OS and their compatibilities with each other, and you interrupted your 
question with an explanation of how your browser had messed up because of 
google mail or something like that. And your explanation was *long*. I was 
sighing, wondering why I had to read all of this stuff just to actually get 
to your question. I considered myself to be doing you a favor to actually 
read through all that to find the question, so that I could actually answer 
it, rather than just give up and abandon the thread. I'm not asking for your 
gratitude or appreciation or anything like that: It was *MY* decision to 
actually read through all that, so you don't owe me anything. I'm just 
giving you an alternative perspective on the conversation -- one you may not 
have been aware of.

>
>> because maybe you're right and I'm wrong (about the socialness of this
>> group).
>
> Someone is actually man enough to admit that they may be wrong? Wow.
> Maybe I misjudged ... some of you.

    Yes, I think you may have misjudged a lot of the posters here. This 
group is very reasonable as far as newsgroups go. There's a very low ratio 
of trolls (I think I saw PofN post here though, and (s)he's a troll, so 
ignore him/her), and I don't think every single time a regular said 
something factually incorrect, they admitted it.

>>     I mention it now to advise you to not takes things too personally.
>
> Suggestions that implicitly question my competence notwithstanding, I
> presume?

    Yes, exactly. If you feel someone has insulted you, just ignore that 
aspect of the post, but don't nescessarily ignore the post altogether. It 
may still contain advice for your problem, and if it contains questions, try 
to answer them.

    Seriously, ignore insults is very effective in getting things done.

>
>> People are posting answers here, not only for you, but for future readers
>> who, perhaps months from now, will have the same problem you're having, 
>> and
>> will search the google archives for an answer and find this post. It's 
>> great
>> that you got an answer that works for you, but the people here want to 
>> make
>> sure that the future readers will understand that there's a conventional,
>> "standard" solution for this problem, and that it's better than your
>> solution for certain situations.
>
> Another surprise -- you said "for certain situations"! OK, you
> definitely scored some points on that one.

    Again, I don't think anyone here would claim that one solution is better 
than another solution for all situations. In fact, I was going to suggest 
the solution you undertook: to hardcode the image directly in the class 
file, if you were really having problems with using the classloader. I.e. I 
would advise you to try the classloader solution first, and if that really 
didn't work, as a last resort, go with hardcoding the file. Except you 
figured this out on your own, so I didn't bother to make the post.

> OTOH, I'm still awaiting
> some details regarding this "standard" solution, in the form either of
> the details themselves or a (safe) URL (preferably a *.sun.com URL,
> which obviously would carry extra credibility).

    You might want to make it more explicit that you're awaiting the 
standard solution. From my reading of this thread, my impression is that you 
would not accept the standard solution, even if provided with it.

    Anyway, here it is: http://www.devx.com/tips/Tip/5697

    It's not a *.sun.com URL, but from fairly quick inspection of the 
provided source code (17 lines including import statements and empty lines), 
I think it's obvious that this program won't reformat your harddrive or 
anything, so you can just try running it to see if it really does what it 
claims to do.

>>     Of course, these people, being human, have some emotional attachment 
>> to
>> their solutions.
>
> As, I suppose, might I -- having found something and even fixed a bug
> in it myself is definitely more of an accomplishment than having
> followed a rote, canned routine...
>
>> They downplay the reasons why your solution might be better
>> than theirs. IMHO, if you're happy with your solution, stick with it. If
>> later on, you start having problems with your solution, come back and
>> re-read this thread, and see if the alternatives proposed here address 
>> some
>> of those problems.
>
> I'm aware of its limitations -- both in scaling, and in cases where
> there are direct advantages to separating a resource from the core
> binaries. Those limitations might apply to some stuff in the future, at
> which time I might as well move the icon (which would be easy) to the
> same place as this hypothetical other stuff. Until then, YAGNI appears
> to apply. Also, of course, I'm still missing the information that
> people seem to assume I either have or could easily find. Information I
> might add that they apparently assumed I could easily find once before,
> an assumption that proved to be wrong once before. I've no guarantee
> that plugging in "getResource" and following the first plausible
> instructions I see won't *also* result in disapproval stemming from
> further decision branches. Researching it myself led to a disapproved
> result once, so obviously it's plausible that it may do so again.

    Maybe you should just not care about disapproval so much.

>
> [Snip remaining paragraph, which seems to slide a bit and suggest,
> without coming out and stating, a possible insult.]

    That last part was directed to "everyone else", rather than to you. I 
was basically commenting on my being perplexed at people pushing a solution 
to you that you obviously don't want. I re-read it to see where you might 
have inferred an insult, and I see I used the word "stupid". I didn't mean 
to say your idea is actually stupid. I'm saying that their thinking your 
idea is stupid is not a rational reason for pushing their solution: Because 
people should be free to make stupid decisions if they want. So if they 
wanted rationally to push their solution to you, they needed a better reason 
for doing so.

    - Oliver 

"Twisted" <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1164152572.816048.212740@m7g2000cwm.googlegroups.com...

[...]
>
> As for "books written on the subject", that is an option for someone
> with a higher budget than I. Keep your recommendations and
> (revenue-generating, no doubt) Amazon links to yourself, please.

    The only person who posts revenue generating Amazon links in this group 
AFAIK is Roedy, and he hasn't posted in a long time, let alone in this 
thread.

> And
> don't you *dare* suggest that "if you can't afford xyz, you shouldn't
> touch any development tool with a ten foot pole", lest I call you a
> filthy capitalist pig that discriminates against the poor and supports
> raising the barrier to entry to entrepreneurial activities to protect
> an incumbent CEO class from any risk of ever facing something
> resembling actual competition, then launch into a lengthy political
> diatribe.

    Ouch. Well, we certainly don't want *THAT*.

    However note that no one in this thread, AFAIK, has suggested that not 
being afford something means anything at all. I think the majority of us 
uses free tools (namely Eclipse, NetBeans, Java itself, etc.).

[...]
>> If you're not going to take the advice of people on comp.lang.java.*
>
> I didn't say I wouldn't. I did say I wouldn't follow it *blindly*, and
> certainly that I won't follow "advice" that consists of vague
> suggestions lacking detail in crucial areas. "Get and use tool X"
> without any real detail (not so much as the URL where the tool's
> official Web page resides, assuming it even has one) and "Do this"
> suggestions that leave a lot of questions that, when asked, go
> unanswered except with flamage, do not exactly encourage me to be
> trusting.

    Make it more explicit. If you want information, ask a question. For 
example, rather than saying "I still haven't gotten a link to Ant.", post 
"Where can I download Ant?".

>
> I still haven't heard anyone tell me any of the following, which is
> behavior that I find suspicious:
> * From those who recommended getting Ant, its official URL at minimum.

http://ant.apache.org/

> * Regarding getResource, the exact way to have the resource found when
> the app is tested in the development environment *without* either
> jumbling every project together *or* overloading the system class path
> with a sub directory for every project.

    There are many ways to do this. Try this (off the top of my head, if it 
doesn't actually work, let me know and I'll investigate further): create a 
package called "resource". Put a class "ResourceManager" in that package, 
which does all the calls to getResource. Put all your resources in that 
resource package, perhaps under some directory hierarchy. Make all the 
getResource URLs relative to that ResourceManager class.

> * Regarding getResource, the exact way to have that same resource
> automatically included into a jar when one is built, when the time
> comes. One person suggested that Eclipse can be made to do this,
> without saying anything in detail about how. Others suggested Ant would
> be needed, without saying anything in detail about how to do it with
> Ant.

    I think when you tell Eclipse to make a JAR, it'll do this by default. 
Right click on the project, choose export, and tell the wizard you want to 
export to JAR. You'll need to specify which class contains your public 
static void main(String[]) method, but otherwise you can leave everything 
else to their default settings.

    - Oliver 

Twisted wrote:
> * Worry about end-users' inevitably encountering said problem and
> having no clue anyway how to find the file and put it where it needs to
> be or otherwise fix whatever went wrong -- likely, their recourse will
> have to be to reinstall the app. Yuck! I'll be looking an awful lot
> like Microsoft then -- my stuff stops working and has to be reinstalled
> and such!

This tends to be a non-issue.  It's just as likely to be missing a
..class file from a jar than to be missing a .jpg file.  I don't see why
you make the distinction, there is truely nothing special about a
..class file as far as files are concerned.  And frankly, I think the
error message "Couldn't find icon file 'c:/program
files/myapp/resources/myapp.jpg'" is a lot nicer error message that
"NoClassDefFoundException: net.twisted.IconClass."

As far as I know, the class loaders uses getResource internally to get
the .class file.

Also notice, you have now spent more energy defending your approach
than you would have taken to learn the new approach. What could it hurt
you to experiment with getResources for half an hour, and see for
yourself that it is or isn't what you need?
getResources DOES NOT require you have a jar file, but it DOES ALLOW
you to have a jar file, or a file somewhere else.

Well, I hope I never have to work on the same codebase as you.  Its
never fun to work with a stubborn programmer who doesn't have enough
experience to back up their claims.  You're expierence is "I found it
on google, so it must be right."  Our experience is "We've used this
approach many times, and it works very well."

Enjoy the monster you are creating, and when you find you need to
rewrite it because its become impossible to maintain, consider using
getResources instead.

Joe Attardi wrote:
> You are right that you shouldn't mix source files with
> object/class/output files. The image(s) should be in an image source
> directory, img/ or something. They get copied over to the build
> directory when you do a build; they now are resources in the classpath.
> They haven't changed form, but in this context they aren't source files
> any longer.

"They get copied over" -- how? By magic? Or are you suggesting adding
loads of new, manual steps to every build?

> And as for your other question, no, beans are not a RAD tool. If you
> are thinking of a JavaBean, in its most basic form a JavaBean is
> nothing more than an object with some properties, and corresponding
> getXXX() and setXXX() methods for those properties...

As shown on the Sun Web site, their function seems to be rapid
application development.

Daniel Dyer wrote:
> The two points I'd contend would be having to add it to the classpath on
> the development system (see above), and having to manually package the
> classes.  Automating the build is good for productivity.  It will speed up
> your edit/build/debug cycle.

Exactly my point -- thank you.

You see, I don't know how to add external resources and still have an
automatic build. :P

There probably is a way, of course...

wesley.hall@gmail.com wrote:
> In general, I have to say, I admire the way you stick to your guns, and
> this isnt really a question of "right and wrong". It is just that there
> are disadvantages to your approach that you are either unwilling or
> unable to see

I am aware of them.

> and advantages to getResource that you are treating in
> the same way.

Nope.

> You refuse to learn ant because it is "yet another thing"
> but correct use of this tool will solve most of the problems you have.

Actually, there are several other reasons. Notable among them is that
nobody has yet mentioned anything remotely resembling a URL for it, and
it should be fairly obvious that a google search with the query "ant"
is unlikely to produce anything relevant here.

Furthermore, there's the question of whether it can be easily
integrated with eclipse, and if so how, without adding too much
complication or work to each testing cycle...

Ian Wilson wrote:
> Just right click on the project name in the Package Explorer, choose
> "new" then "folder", give it a name (e.g. "resources").
>
> Then right-click that folder choose "import", navigate to your image and
> select it.
>
> Done.

That's it? And it will be found by getResource during testing *and*
after deployment? (I assume using a relative URI like
getResource("resources/foo.gif")?

If it's that easy, how come nobody mentioned it sooner? This discussion
has been going on for three days now.

Oliver Wong wrote:
>     More explicitly, beans and NetBeans are not the same thing.

Well, judging by the name, NetBeans are beans *with internet added!* or
something of the sort. :) (Kind of the way half the current US patent
applications are some preexisting business model *with internet added!*
....)

Twisted wrote:
> Actually, there are several other reasons. Notable among them is that
> nobody has yet mentioned anything remotely resembling a URL for it, and
> it should be fairly obvious that a google search with the query "ant"
> is unlikely to produce anything relevant here.

Actually that simple query returns the required item as the very first 
entry!

Oh boy. Another big fire to put out.

Oliver Wong wrote:
>     Maybe one of the things you do differently is consider certain posts to
> be a challenge from an alpha male, which causes you to react in a certain
> way, which attracts those posts you don't seem to enjoy receiving.
>
>     Maybe one of the things you do differently is to believe that there's a
> dominance hierarchy here, among the posters.

Isn't there always when a bunch of primates gather in one place?
Anyway, how else to interpret being treated hostilely as a consequence
of nothing more than a) being present and b) not being submissive? All
I've "done" is not back down when challenged. (By "challenge" is meant
anything that assumes a demanding, patronizing, correcting, lecturing,
insulting, instructing, or other such tone rather than being
equal-to-equal informative, or actually submissive itself, in case you
are wondering. Basically any parent-child, teacher-student,
bully-victim, or cop-suspect type communication idiom, in which the
first of the two roles is dominant and is expecting the second to be
submissive and becomes angry and hostile if that expectation is not
fulfilled.)

>     Maybe one of the things you do differently is to believe that someone
> asks you a question, they are not trying to help you.

When the question seems to be aimed toward an intent of trying to prove
some kind of perceived inadequacy of mine, rather than toward gathering
information in a neutral way? You betcha.

>     No. I'm trying to offer you an alternative perspective to help you
> escape this problem of the perception that everyone's ganging up on you, or
> something like that. If you don't want help (perhaps because you don't think
> you have this problem), then feel free to ignore my posts.

I simply wasn't expecting to have to defend all of my design choices
and suchlike in this crowd, that's all. I ask for information about a
specific issue, not for lecturing; and being, as near as I can figure,
involuntarily signed up for some sort of informal remedial training is
downright insulting.

>     You may defend the logic of your choice of words all you want, but this
> does not change their emotional impact. Saying you found a bug is generally
> considered a bad idea, unless you're very confident that there is, in fact,
> a bug involved.

Emotional impact is irrelevant. We are discussing software. Software
sometimes has bugs. If that is somehow shocking to you, then perhaps
you are in the wrong newsgroup. Emotionally-based reluctance to discuss
the facts of a situation candidly is the cause of more disasters in
engineering and in numerous other fields (e.g. medicine) than most
other human foibles *combined*.

> When you are having problems with a piece of software, don't claim you have
> found a bug unless you are very, very sure of your ground. Hint: unless you
> can provide a source-code patch that fixes the problem, or a regression test
> against a previous version that demonstrates incorrect behavior, you are
> probably not sure enough.

For the things I've claimed are likely (or even just "possible") bugs,
I've noted in each case that changing JRE from 1.5 to 1.6 caused a
change in behavior. Given that new JREs are supposed to be backward
compatible, this is indeed indicative of a possible bug when it occurs.
Additionally, I haven't actually claimed to have found a bug -- only a
"possible" bug.

> When asking your question, it is best to write as though you assume you are
> doing something wrong, even if you are privately pretty sure you have found
> an actual bug. If there really is a bug, you will hear about it in the
> answer. Play it so the maintainers will want to apologize to you if the bug
> is real, rather than so that you will owe them an apology if you have messed
> up.

This appears to be regarding communicating with the developers of a
product, rather than with other users.

>     I think you may be thinking in terms of "us (or me) versus them" where
> it's not appropriate. As hinted at above, when someone asks you a question,
> it is usually because that information is helpful in solving your problem.

My manner of thinking is affected by the behavior I observe. Those
whose responses to me are confrontational in any way begin to be
treated as a "them" I'm "versus", because they are evidently treating
me that way. Those whose responses seem collaborative, rather than
competitive or outright combative, are not treated that way.

>     Sorry to be blunt but IMHO, your stories are distracting and largely
> uninteresting.

You are free to ignore them if you perceive them that way.

> In one example, we were discussing 64 bit and 32 bit CPUs and
> OS and their compatibilities with each other, and you interrupted your
> question with an explanation of how your browser had messed up because of
> google mail or something like that. And your explanation was *long*. I was
> sighing, wondering why I had to read all of this stuff just to actually get
> to your question. I considered myself to be doing you a favor to actually
> read through all that to find the question, so that I could actually answer
> it, rather than just give up and abandon the thread. I'm not asking for your
> gratitude or appreciation or anything like that: It was *MY* decision to
> actually read through all that, so you don't owe me anything. I'm just
> giving you an alternative perspective on the conversation -- one you may not
> have been aware of.

That may be frustration at broken behavior of gmail leaking out. I have
yet to find anywhere to actually render feedback about such things that
actually goes anywhere but into a black hole, or anywhere to discuss it
with other users that doesn't require registration.

>     Yes, I think you may have misjudged a lot of the posters here.

Don't push your luck.

> (I think I saw PofN post here though, and (s)he's a troll, so
> ignore him/her)

PofN?

> Seriously, ignore insults is very effective in getting things done.

Almost as effective as not making any, I presume?

>     You might want to make it more explicit that you're awaiting the
> standard solution. From my reading of this thread, my impression is that you
> would not accept the standard solution, even if provided with it.

That's a curious impression, since no emprical evidence for such a
claim existed -- nobody had provided it.

>     Anyway, here it is: http://www.devx.com/tips/Tip/5697

This seems to miss the point. It seems to be purely on the coding side
-- I could get that much by plugging ClassLoader.getResource into
Google or tracking it down in the JDK API docs. It's questions about
placing the files so they aren't mixed in with object code and keeping
the build process automatic that I had. Someone else seems to have
answered them recently; if their answer proves to work, this aspect of
the discussion can be considered concluded.

>     Maybe you should just not care about disapproval so much.

Why does anyone here bother to sling it liberally around? Maybe they
shouldn't -- it can't serve any useful purpose after all.

>     That last part was directed to "everyone else", rather than to you.

It seemed to suggest, without quite stating it outright, a belief that
I might be an "idiot", or something closely similar. As such, I can't
simply let it slide. It seemed like the kind of remark that occurs in
certain adversarial situations where the one who makes the remark and
others on their "side" then chuckle into their hands or after you
leave, and you know they did/will, but you can't quite prove that
you've actually been insulted.

On Nov 22, 3:11 pm, "Twisted" <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote:
>They get copied over" -- how? By magic? Or are you suggesting adding
> loads of new, manual steps to every build?
Can you please stop over-exaggerating the impact on a build this will
have? A copy command is not "loads of new, manual steps". You didn't
answer my question before, but I will ask it again because it is
relevant - what build tool/process are you currently using to build
your app? A Makefile? A batch file or shell script? Simply typing javac
*.java? Packaging up dependent resources are a trivial part of any
reasonable build process.

> As shown on the Sun Web site, their function seems to be rapid
> application development.
This is one application of them, but in my experience it is not
frequently used. One large area JavaBean components are used is in
model-view-controller frameworks like Struts. Also in the JSP arena,
Java objects have to follow the JavaBeans conventions to have their
properties accessed with the JSP expression language.

Anyway, I digress. NetBeans is a poorly named product, I'll give you
that. There is a good blog post I read once that discusses where
NetBeans got its name:
http://hoskinator.blogspot.com/2006/04/why-is-netbeans-called-netbeans.html


Let me reiterate my question from before. What ARE you using for a
build process? We can discuss the pros and cons better if we know HOW
you are building your app.

-- 
jpa

Oliver Wong wrote:
> > As for "books written on the subject", that is an option for someone
> > with a higher budget than I. Keep your recommendations and
> > (revenue-generating, no doubt) Amazon links to yourself, please.
>
>     The only person who posts revenue generating Amazon links in this group
> AFAIK is Roedy, and he hasn't posted in a long time, let alone in this
> thread.

This was not a claim that anyone had done so recently; just a warning.
It looked like someone might be leading up to a soft sell (or even a
hard sell) and I figured to let them know not to bother wasting their
time. With my budget, they can't possibly succeed no matter how hard
they try, after all. I should also note that I've encountered this
behavior in other technically-oriented newsgroups -- most have at least
one person who looks at every n00b question as an opportunity to peddle
books on which they get a commission of some sort. Anyone whose first
resort answer isn't their own advice in their own words, or a
freely-accessible Web page, is automatically a suspect -- the ones with
ulterior (financial) motives invariably jump directly to a book, or
occasionally a Web site behind a registerwall, sometimes after "leading
up to it" first.

>     However note that no one in this thread, AFAIK, has suggested that not
> being afford something means anything at all. I think the majority of us
> uses free tools (namely Eclipse, NetBeans, Java itself, etc.).

Again, that was a pre-emptive strike. There's at least one lurking in
this crowd -- I just know it. Either a general anti-free-anything
axe-grinder or specifically someone hoping to sell something. You
mentioned a name -- Roedy. No doubt just itching to pop up again with
another questionable recommendation that just happens to earn him a
commission if it's followed. :)

>     Make it more explicit. If you want information, ask a question. For
> example, rather than saying "I still haven't gotten a link to Ant.", post
> "Where can I download Ant?".

I just find it interesting that half the people in this thread would
mention and recommend something heavily and not once have it occur to
them that until someone can use something, they first have to find it?
:)

> http://ant.apache.org/

Thanks.

>     There are many ways to do this. Try this (off the top of my head, if it
> doesn't actually work, let me know and I'll investigate further): create a
> package called "resource". Put a class "ResourceManager" in that package,
> which does all the calls to getResource. Put all your resources in that
> resource package, perhaps under some directory hierarchy. Make all the
> getResource URLs relative to that ResourceManager class.

Eh. That sounds like I'd have to dig up by object code directory and
start putting resource files there, which I'd argue really belong with
the source files (if perhaps get copied there).

[Further stuff snipped -- thanks]

Daniel Pitts wrote:
> Also notice, you have now spent more energy defending your approach
> than you would have taken to learn the new approach.

Yes, no thanks to having been *put* on the defensive. Within a few
posts of the start of this thread, somebody opened their big fat mouth
and forced me to either defend my decisions or cop to some sort of
(perceived) misdemeanor! In public! Yeah, right, like I'd be dumb
enough to do that in a medium that's known to eat alive anyone who
shows the slightest sign of weakness or submission...

> Well, I hope I never have to work on the same codebase as you.  Its
> never fun to work with a stubborn programmer...

Actually, my stubbornness emerges only when people challenge the way I
do something. It then becomes necessary to defend my choice or appear
to admit to some sort of wrongdoing. This seems to arise in either of
two ways: 1. some jerk's main source of ego gratification is to put
down others, often by going out of their way to catch (or even
deliberately entrap) them in some sort of situation where they can then
be accused of doing something wrong and cannot easily extricate
themselves or avoid ending up with some appearance of guilt, or 2.
someone with an honestly helpful intention makes the unfortunate choice
of being a patronizing arsehole and offering such helpful and
morale-boosting advice as "Whoa! Stop! You're doing it wrong! Here, you
do *this* and *this* and <list of advantages of their method>". The
advantages of their method may be genuine, but equally numerous are the
disadvantages of their approach to communicating it. It's
confrontational, and that's just for starters...

> You're expierence is "I found it on google, so it must be right."

Actually, my experience is "it worked, so it can't be wrong, though it
might not be right for ALL situations". Also, my experience is "I found
it on google, and it worked, so I'm mystified at being faulted for
actually making an apparently-successful effort to solve the problem
myself instead of waiting for someone else to tell me what to do"...

Joe Attardi wrote on 22.11.2006 21:52:
> Anyway, I digress. NetBeans is a poorly named product, I'll give you
> that. There is a good blog post I read once that discusses where
> NetBeans got its name:
> http://hoskinator.blogspot.com/2006/04/why-is-netbeans-called-netbeans.html
> 
> 
> Let me reiterate my question from before. What ARE you using for a
> build process? We can discuss the pros and cons better if we know HOW
> you are building your app.
> 

Give up, Joe
Even if he did, he wouldn't accept your tips.

Twisted prefers to speculate over the functionality of a tools just by 
interpreting the name even if told otherwise. He is not interested in accepting 
any other solution than his, regardless of the fact that the whole Java 
community is happy applying all the tips given in this thread.

He already mentioned he is using Eclipse and I wonder why he is using a tool 
that shades the sunlight, and not a tool for Java development - at least that 
should be his interpretation of the tool's name.
Other people in this thread have already described on how to configure Eclipse 
to do exactly what he needs, but he refuses to accept that.

He uses the limits of ancient CLASSPATH settings (which probably nobody somewhat 
knowledgable in Java has used for ages) as an excuse for the complicated setup.

"Twisted" <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1164228939.419034.138560@l39g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
>
> You
> mentioned a name -- Roedy. No doubt just itching to pop up again with
> another questionable recommendation that just happens to earn him a
> commission if it's followed. :)

    Roedy's Amazon links were a bit controversial. Roedy himself is (was? 
Haven't seen him around for a while now) an extremely helpful poster on this 
newsgroup, spending lots of time and effort helping out people with their 
Java programs. Most of the time, he'd do so without mentioning buying a book 
at all.

    If you go to his website (http://mindprod.com/index.html) you'll 
probably stumble onto a revenue-generating link to Amazon. He has lots of 
them there. His website is also a collection of FAQs on Java and their 
answers.

    One day, someone criticized Roedy because of the Amazon links on his 
site, and there was a medium sized argument around that. My personal 
conclusion is that Roedy isn't hurting anybody with these links. He's not, 
for example, withholding information, hoping you'll buy the books. It's just 
if you're going to buy the books *anyway*, might as well buy it via those 
links and to give a small percentage of the profits to Roedy.

[...]
>>     There are many ways to do this. Try this (off the top of my head, if 
>> it
>> doesn't actually work, let me know and I'll investigate further): create 
>> a
>> package called "resource". Put a class "ResourceManager" in that package,
>> which does all the calls to getResource. Put all your resources in that
>> resource package, perhaps under some directory hierarchy. Make all the
>> getResource URLs relative to that ResourceManager class.
>
> Eh. That sounds like I'd have to dig up by object code directory and
> start putting resource files there, which I'd argue really belong with
> the source files (if perhaps get copied there).

    Did you say you were using Eclipse? Eclipse will copy over the resources 
automatically by default. Other IDEs probably support this too, but I don't 
know if it's their default settings or not.

    - Oliver 

"Twisted" <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1164228442.382935.268760@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
> Oh boy. Another big fire to put out.
>
> Oliver Wong wrote:
>>     Maybe one of the things you do differently is consider certain posts 
>> to
>> be a challenge from an alpha male, which causes you to react in a certain
>> way, which attracts those posts you don't seem to enjoy receiving.
>>
>>     Maybe one of the things you do differently is to believe that there's 
>> a
>> dominance hierarchy here, among the posters.
>
> Isn't there always when a bunch of primates gather in one place?

    No.

> Anyway, how else to interpret being treated hostilely as a consequence
> of nothing more than a) being present and b) not being submissive?

    As I've pointed out earlier, other people have posted here, being 
"present", and not being submissive, and they don't get the responses you 
seem to trigger. Yet you consistently seemed to be getting these responses. 
Personally, I would conclude you must be doing something different.


> All
> I've "done" is not back down when challenged. (By "challenge" is meant
> anything that assumes a demanding, patronizing, correcting, lecturing,
> insulting, instructing, or other such tone rather than being
> equal-to-equal informative, or actually submissive itself, in case you
> are wondering. Basically any parent-child, teacher-student,
> bully-victim, or cop-suspect type communication idiom, in which the
> first of the two roles is dominant and is expecting the second to be
> submissive and becomes angry and hostile if that expectation is not
> fulfilled.)

    You seem to be missing the point I'm trying to make. You seem to be 
defending your actions to me. I'm not challenging them, or deriding, or 
anything like that. I didn't say what you did was wrong. I'm saying that 
your actions have likely triggered the response you got. If this is the type 
of responses you wanted, then great: you're getting what you want. If this 
isn't the type of response you want, then you'll probably need to change 
your actions. It has nothing to do with right or wrong, only with cause and 
effect.


>
>>     Maybe one of the things you do differently is to believe that someone
>> asks you a question, they are not trying to help you.
>
> When the question seems to be aimed toward an intent of trying to prove
> some kind of perceived inadequacy of mine, rather than toward gathering
> information in a neutral way? You betcha.

    Okay, so maybe if you STOP doing this, you wouldn't get the undesirable 
responses you seem to be getting. What's that english expression? Seeing 
trees, but not seeing the forest? Something like that? You might be too 
caught up with this discussion to realize what's going on, so take a step 
back, and look at the discussion from a distance:

    I'm telling you "Stop perceiving things as being personal attacks."
    You're responding "But they *ARE* personal attacks!"

    Can you see the circularity of this?

>>     No. I'm trying to offer you an alternative perspective to help you
>> escape this problem of the perception that everyone's ganging up on you, 
>> or
>> something like that. If you don't want help (perhaps because you don't 
>> think
>> you have this problem), then feel free to ignore my posts.
>
> I simply wasn't expecting to have to defend all of my design choices
> and suchlike in this crowd, that's all.

    So just don't defend them. You posted your solution. Someone posts 
"Here's a better way to do it." You read it, say "Ok" (either to yourself, 
or make an actual post saying just that), and then go on, living your life. 
If you reply "Well, no, my idea is better because...", then expect to get 
more replies saying "Actually, no, *MY* idea is better because..." and so 
on.

> I ask for information about a
> specific issue, not for lecturing;

    You can't control what other people post on Usenet. All you can do is 
ask a question. If someone gives you the answer you want, then great. If 
not, then hey, you're no worst off than before, right?

> and being, as near as I can figure,
> involuntarily signed up for some sort of informal remedial training is
> downright insulting.

    Are you referring to my posts as an informal remedial training? More 
specifically, are you getting insulted by my posts? If so, let me know, and 
I'll stop replying to you in this thread.

>
>>     You may defend the logic of your choice of words all you want, but 
>> this
>> does not change their emotional impact. Saying you found a bug is 
>> generally
>> considered a bad idea, unless you're very confident that there is, in 
>> fact,
>> a bug involved.
>
> Emotional impact is irrelevant. We are discussing software. Software
> sometimes has bugs. If that is somehow shocking to you, then perhaps
> you are in the wrong newsgroup. Emotionally-based reluctance to discuss
> the facts of a situation candidly is the cause of more disasters in
> engineering and in numerous other fields (e.g. medicine) than most
> other human foibles *combined*.

    Again, you arguing with me using logic. I'm telling you that no matter 
how logical your arguments are, that does NOT change the emotional impact of 
your choice of words. You're surprised by the reactions you're getting on 
this newsgroup, right? I'm trying to explain to you why you got the 
reactions you got so that you won't be so surprised in the future.

    You can tell me emotional impact is irrelevant, but obviously, this does 
not agree with the empirical evidence of the direction that this thread is 
taking. You can tell me that emotionally-based discussions are "bad", and 
being autistic, I will completely agree with you. It annoys me to no end 
with emotions overcome logic, and nonsensical behaviour is exhibited, 
whether in real-life or on usenet. You and I are in agreement in that 
respect. The difference is that I acknowledge that the rest of the world 
isn't like you and me. They have emotions, and their emotions affect their 
behaviour. I'm trying to share this revelation with you, so that you will 
understand why, although we'd both rather it not be the case, sometimes you 
*DO* have to factor in emotions to explain human behaviour.

    You're surprised that you had to be on the defensive, right? I'm not. Do 
you want to know why? Then listen to my advise. Don't dismiss it out of 
hand, because of some perception that I'm with "them" and therefore 
"against" you. You don't have to agree with my advise, just listen to it. 
Really think about it.

>
>> When you are having problems with a piece of software, don't claim you 
>> have
>> found a bug unless you are very, very sure of your ground. Hint: unless 
>> you
>> can provide a source-code patch that fixes the problem, or a regression 
>> test
>> against a previous version that demonstrates incorrect behavior, you are
>> probably not sure enough.
>
> For the things I've claimed are likely (or even just "possible") bugs,
> I've noted in each case that changing JRE from 1.5 to 1.6 caused a
> change in behavior. Given that new JREs are supposed to be backward
> compatible, this is indeed indicative of a possible bug when it occurs.
> Additionally, I haven't actually claimed to have found a bug -- only a
> "possible" bug.

    I don't have much to add. I just want to point out that it's not 
unlikely that you may have found a bug. Once again, I'm have no disagreement 
with this. 1.6 is in beta, and so it probably has bugs. If I were King of 
Usenet, I'd say everyone is allowed to claim that they found bugs if they 
wanted to, and no one is allowed ot hold that against them.

    But I'm not King of Usenet. I can't control how people react to your 
post. But I can observe it, and share my observations with you. My 
observations is that people don't react well when you claim you've found a 
bug. You can argue that this is completely irrational, and you may be right. 
However, this does not change the fact that people do not react well when 
you claim you've found a bug. Want to know how to avoid triggering this 
irrational backlash? Simple: Don't claim you've found a bug.

>
>> When asking your question, it is best to write as though you assume you 
>> are
>> doing something wrong, even if you are privately pretty sure you have 
>> found
>> an actual bug. If there really is a bug, you will hear about it in the
>> answer. Play it so the maintainers will want to apologize to you if the 
>> bug
>> is real, rather than so that you will owe them an apology if you have 
>> messed
>> up.
>
> This appears to be regarding communicating with the developers of a
> product, rather than with other users.

    Abstract the details, and the advice applies to this usenet group as 
well, IMHO.

>
>>     I think you may be thinking in terms of "us (or me) versus them" 
>> where
>> it's not appropriate. As hinted at above, when someone asks you a 
>> question,
>> it is usually because that information is helpful in solving your 
>> problem.
>
> My manner of thinking is affected by the behavior I observe. Those
> whose responses to me are confrontational in any way begin to be
> treated as a "them" I'm "versus", because they are evidently treating
> me that way. Those whose responses seem collaborative, rather than
> competitive or outright combative, are not treated that way.

    So do you think I'm "against" you, or "with" you? Either way, you'd be 
wrong. I'm neutral. I'm providing what I consider to be good advice to you, 
just like I try to provide what I consider to be good advice to everyone 
else who posts on comp.lang.java.programmer and for which I believe I 
actually know the solution. And I don't particularly care whether you accept 
that advice or not, just like I don't particularly care whether anyone else 
in this newsgroup accepts the advice I give them or not.

>
>>     Sorry to be blunt but IMHO, your stories are distracting and largely
>> uninteresting.
>
> You are free to ignore them if you perceive them that way.

    Thank you.

>
>> In one example, we were discussing 64 bit and 32 bit CPUs and
>> OS and their compatibilities with each other, and you interrupted your
>> question with an explanation of how your browser had messed up because of
>> google mail or something like that. And your explanation was *long*. I 
>> was
>> sighing, wondering why I had to read all of this stuff just to actually 
>> get
>> to your question. I considered myself to be doing you a favor to actually
>> read through all that to find the question, so that I could actually 
>> answer
>> it, rather than just give up and abandon the thread. I'm not asking for 
>> your
>> gratitude or appreciation or anything like that: It was *MY* decision to
>> actually read through all that, so you don't owe me anything. I'm just
>> giving you an alternative perspective on the conversation -- one you may 
>> not
>> have been aware of.
>
> That may be frustration at broken behavior of gmail leaking out. I have
> yet to find anywhere to actually render feedback about such things that
> actually goes anywhere but into a black hole, or anywhere to discuss it
> with other users that doesn't require registration.

    Tried e-mailing google?

>
>>     Yes, I think you may have misjudged a lot of the posters here.
>
> Don't push your luck.
>
>> (I think I saw PofN post here though, and (s)he's a troll, so
>> ignore him/her)
>
> PofN?

    That's the username they post under.

>
>> Seriously, ignore insults is very effective in getting things done.
>
> Almost as effective as not making any, I presume?

    Well, if your goal is to insult someone, then probably not making 
insults is not very effective in doing that. There's a lesson in Zen 
Buddhism posed in the form of a question:

    The teacher tells the story of an old man who walks down a road with 
lots of small sharp pebbles, and as he steps on these pebbles, they cut his 
feet and cause him pain. The old man has some sheets of leather, and if he 
places this leather between his food and the rock, the rocks aren't able to 
penetrate the leather, and thus cannot cut his feet. Unfortunately, the old 
man does not have enough leather to cover the entire road. What should he 
do?

    The student is supposed to respond that he could wrap his feet in the 
leather, thus making shoes. And this is supposed to teach the student that 
it is far easier to change yourself, than to change the world around you.

    People are insulting you, and you don't like it. You could try to 
convince everybody to stop insulting you, or you could just ignore the 
insults. Both solutions work, but one requires much more time, energy and 
effort than the other.

>>     You might want to make it more explicit that you're awaiting the
>> standard solution. From my reading of this thread, my impression is that 
>> you
>> would not accept the standard solution, even if provided with it.
>
> That's a curious impression, since no emprical evidence for such a
> claim existed -- nobody had provided it.

    I can explain to you how I arrived at that impression: You are 
criticizing the "standard" solution, citing your solution as being superior. 
Therefore, I think it's reasonable to conclude that given the option to 
choose between either solution, you'd probably choose your own.

>
>>     Anyway, here it is: http://www.devx.com/tips/Tip/5697
>
> This seems to miss the point. It seems to be purely on the coding side
> -- I could get that much by plugging ClassLoader.getResource into
> Google or tracking it down in the JDK API docs. It's questions about
> placing the files so they aren't mixed in with object code and keeping
> the build process automatic that I had. Someone else seems to have
> answered them recently; if their answer proves to work, this aspect of
> the discussion can be considered concluded.
>
>>     Maybe you should just not care about disapproval so much.
>
> Why does anyone here bother to sling it liberally around?

    If you really want to know why, first I advise you to read some of the 
other posts, and see if you agree with me that most of the time, people 
don't sling disapproval around so much. It seems to happen mostly to your 
posts. If you agree with me on that, then consider that you maybe you're 
doing something different compared to all the other posters. Then, try to 
identify what that is, and see if it's something you're willing to change.

> Maybe they
> shouldn't -- it can't serve any useful purpose after all.

    You're right. They shouldn't, and it probably does not serve any useful 
purpose.

    But does that mean they'll stop? Probably not. So once again, I'm 
suggesting that it's far easier to just shrug off the disapproval than to 
try and convince everybody who's disapproving to stop doing it.


>
>>     That last part was directed to "everyone else", rather than to you.
>
> It seemed to suggest, without quite stating it outright, a belief that
> I might be an "idiot", or something closely similar. As such, I can't
> simply let it slide. It seemed like the kind of remark that occurs in
> certain adversarial situations where the one who makes the remark and
> others on their "side" then chuckle into their hands or after you
> leave, and you know they did/will, but you can't quite prove that
> you've actually been insulted.

    Well, that wasn't the intent.

    - Oliver 

"Twisted" <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1164226935.066220.317720@k70g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Ian Wilson wrote:
>> Just right click on the project name in the Package Explorer, choose
>> "new" then "folder", give it a name (e.g. "resources").
>>
>> Then right-click that folder choose "import", navigate to your image and
>> select it.
>>
>> Done.
>
> That's it? And it will be found by getResource during testing *and*
> after deployment? (I assume using a relative URI like
> getResource("resources/foo.gif")?

    Why don't you try it and see?

>
> If it's that easy, how come nobody mentioned it sooner? This discussion
> has been going on for three days now.
>

    Each person has their own reason. I just read the Joe Attardi branch of 
the thread, so his reason is fresh in my mind: Because he kept asking you 
what build process you used, and you haven't told him that you're using 
Eclipse.

    This is part of what I was talking about when I said just assume that 
when someone asks you a question, it's 'cause they're trying to help you, 
but don't have enough info to do so.

    - Oliver 

In article <1164229652.167658.178140@l39g2000cwd.googlegroups.com>,
Twisted <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>Actually, my stubbornness emerges only when people challenge the way I
>do something. It then becomes necessary to defend my choice or appear
>to admit to some sort of wrongdoing.

All programmers do _something_ the wrong way. Some programmers are
incapable of realizing this. They are the ones to avoid having to work
with.

Cheers
	Bent D
-- 
Bent Dalager - bcd@pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
                                    powered by emacs

> nobody has yet mentioned anything remotely resembling a URL for it, and
> it should be fairly obvious that a google search with the query "ant"
> is unlikely to produce anything relevant here.

Clearly you didn't even try. As someone has already pointed out, a
google search for 'ant' will present the project page as the first
link. This should be proof enough of the popularity of the tool.

> Furthermore, there's the question of whether it can be easily
> integrated with eclipse, and if so how, without adding too much
> complication or work to each testing cycle...

Yes, it integrates easily with eclipse and any other serious IDE. It is
a tool for scripting your build process so, while there is a slight
overhead in writing the script (and it shouldnt be more than an hour or
two, infact, probably far less time than you have already spent arguing
the toss on this newgroup), once the script is written it will
significantly improve your build and testing cycle as you can use it to
automate your build, run your tests, generate your documentation,
create a Java webstart archive for your software, deploy it to an app
server (although this seems not to be required for your software) etc
etc. You will also be able to set up an use a continous integration
server that will periodically check out your code (assuming you are
running a version control system like CVS and subversion... and if not,
you should be) and run the build and tests, emailing you if there are
any failures so you find out about integration errors quickly an
efficiently. Every serious project (open source or otherwise) uses
either ant or maven (I prefer the former, YMMV) for build automatation,
this includes the Sun sponsered 'glassfish' application server.

I can assure you that if you take on contract work, or work on any
serious established product, you WILL come across this tool eventually.
You seem to be underestimating how ubiquitous it actually is.

To be honest, given the arrogant tone of your first two reply sections,
and your requirement that others do all the legwork for you (down to
actually doing the google search!) I am not even sure why I am even
bothering to reply. In any case, I am done with this thread, you will
either take the good advice provided here and move forward, or continue
in your (false) belief that you are the smartest and most experience
Java developer around. Your choice will be for your benefit (or
detriment), not mine. Personally, I am quite happy that you continue
ignoring the best practices of the Java development community, it will
be one less senior level developer that I will need to compete with for
work.

wesley.hall@gmail.com wrote:
>> nobody has yet mentioned anything remotely resembling a URL for it, and
>> it should be fairly obvious that a google search with the query "ant"
>> is unlikely to produce anything relevant here.
> 
> Clearly you didn't even try. As someone has already pointed out, a
> google search for 'ant' will present the project page as the first
> link. This should be proof enough of the popularity of the tool.

As a general tip, when I'm doing anything related to a programming
language, I try the name of the language followed by query-specific
search terms.

java ant -> http://ant.apache.org/

java load icon ->
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/components/icon.html

A tutorial that mentioned key ideas like getResource. Of course, I would
read the API documentation before actually using it.

Patricia

Mark Thornton wrote:
> Twisted wrote:
> > Actually, there are several other reasons. Notable among them is that
> > nobody has yet mentioned anything remotely resembling a URL for it, and
> > it should be fairly obvious that a google search with the query "ant"
> > is unlikely to produce anything relevant here.
>
> Actually that simple query returns the required item as the very first
> entry!

That is illogical. The top hit for "ant" should be entomological in
nature, since the most widespread mainstream use of the word "ant"
refers to insects.

Oliver Wong wrote:
>     Roedy's Amazon links were a bit controversial. Roedy himself is (was?
> Haven't seen him around for a while now) an extremely helpful poster on this
> newsgroup, spending lots of time and effort helping out people with their
> Java programs. Most of the time, he'd do so without mentioning buying a book
> at all.

Naturally. If he posted nothing but Amazon links he'd land in
everyone's plonk file in less than a day, and end up making zero
dollars and zeroty zero cents.

In fact, it sounds like he did more than the bare minimum needed to
avoid that fate, so I'll wager he isn't 100% selfishly in it for the
money, but obviously he isn't 0% either.

>     One day, someone criticized Roedy because of the Amazon links on his
> site, and there was a medium sized argument around that. My personal
> conclusion is that Roedy isn't hurting anybody with these links. He's not,
> for example, withholding information, hoping you'll buy the books.

That is definitely a strong point. If he only gave out teasing or
partial information followed by book links, the case for purely
ulterior motives would be strong, however. (I've seen this behavior in
other newsgroups. One was comp.text.tex, in case anyone's curious.)

> > Eh. That sounds like I'd have to dig up by object code directory and
> > start putting resource files there, which I'd argue really belong with
> > the source files (if perhaps get copied there).
>
>     Did you say you were using Eclipse? Eclipse will copy over the resources
> automatically by default. Other IDEs probably support this too, but I don't
> know if it's their default settings or not.

Yes, someone finally said that earlier today, although I presume they
need to be put in the right place and Eclipse needs to be told they're
part of the project. As long as that only needs to be done the once
("set it and forget it") then I have no further objections there. In
fact, what I had were more in the line of questions (can it be done
that easily, or not?) than objections anyway, though some didn't choose
to interpret them purely as questions. The same that may also have
misinterpreted my defense of the method I ended up using (at least for
now) as an objection to the other, in the mistaken belief that somehow
I considered the two to be mutually exclusive, and believed that either
the way I'd used was right and the other wrong, or vice versa, without
any other possibilities. That was never actually the case. Of course,
another factor now weighing in the method I used's favor for this
specific case is that it's already set up and working that way --
changing it might be fairly simple (might even be simpler than getting
it to work in the first place) but is not as simple as leaving it
alone. If (or when) I have more resources, especially if there's a lot
or they need to be localizable, then I will probably change it so that
all the resources are handled in the same way, the way you guys have
recommended. (Disclaimer: that is in no circumstance to be construed as
any kind of admission, whether of guilt, wrongdoing, or anything else;
it is merely a case of being willing to flexibly respond to changes in
the needs of the project, and changes in what is optimal. There's a lot
of stuff that's been changed or even completely rewritten in its
evolution already, none of which meant that what had gone before was
wrong or a waste of time or anything, just that it became obsolete with
time. Some of it was expected to.)

Oliver Wong wrote:
> >>     Maybe one of the things you do differently is to believe that there's
> >> a
> >> dominance hierarchy here, among the posters.
> >
> > Isn't there always when a bunch of primates gather in one place?
>
>     No.

News to me. Some rare and endangered species of lemur in Madagascar, I
suppose, that's either more solitary or actually eusocial like bees...

>     As I've pointed out earlier, other people have posted here, being
> "present", and not being submissive, and they don't get the responses you
> seem to trigger.

That's because they're not newbies. It's only when someone at the
*bottom* of the pecking order asserts himself that the ones at the top
pick fights. (And when someone in the middle asserts himself around
someone that's higher up...)

> Yet you consistently seemed to be getting these responses.

That's because I am a newbie, and those who adopt an alpha-monkey
attitude therefore pick fights with me. I have some training in this
field, you know, plus I've seen it elsewhere on the net, as well as
everywhere else where humans gather. The subtle put-down, or imperious
commanding attitude, comes first, as a test to the newbie; if the
newbie's response is anything other than "yes sir, no sir, three bags
full sir" or the equivalent the more overt hostility swiftly follows.
In a chat room, someone I hadn't even been directly talking to started
making remarks directed at me one time, ones which assumed a bossy
tone; when I continued to ignore him and talk to someone else he tried
to have me ejected -- evidently I'd failed to pay proper respects to
His Lordship the King of Turd Hill or something by talking exclusively
to other people; fact was, he didn't have anything interesting to say,
and I couldn't care less what turdpile he considered himself king of,
but as far as he was concerned, no doubt, I was a threat and challenge
to his authority, such that it was. On other occasions, I've seen
similar bullying/rancorous behavior in other Usenet groups, Web forums,
and offline -- schoolyards are one place you can generally find
numerous examples of such behavior, and without any confounding factors
such as financial, business, military, or other hierarchies placement
in which may have other factors.

> Personally, I would conclude you must be doing something different.

It's called "being new". And, in particular, "being new and yet not
immediately acquiescing and saying you must be right and I must be
wrong the moment anyone suggests that I might not be right". Nobody
seems to like the latter especially, but it's that or be dishonest in
the cases where I honestly don't agree with King Poobah (or whoever).

> > All
> > I've "done" is not back down when challenged. (By "challenge" is meant
> > anything that assumes a demanding, patronizing, correcting, lecturing,
> > insulting, instructing, or other such tone rather than being
> > equal-to-equal informative, or actually submissive itself, in case you
> > are wondering. Basically any parent-child, teacher-student,
> > bully-victim, or cop-suspect type communication idiom, in which the
> > first of the two roles is dominant and is expecting the second to be
> > submissive and becomes angry and hostile if that expectation is not
> > fulfilled.)
>
>     You seem to be missing the point I'm trying to make. You seem to be
> defending your actions to me.

No, I am describing what I mean by "challenged", a word which might
otherwise be misinterpreted. I'm not talking, for instance, about mere
disagreement, but specifically disagreement with an undertone of "not
only don't I agree with you, but I'm right and you're wrong and you'd
better jump when I say 'frog' from now on sonny" and things of that
nature.

Particularly, disagreement where if I say something, and someone else
disagrees, and I don't immediately say "Of course you're right, and
I'll never do that again", the "someone else" then becomes hostile. If
that occurs, it becomes instantly apparent that what's going on is not
merely a difference of opinion about some particular thing or even a
dispute that is factually resolvable with evidence favoring one side,
but a social game of some kind. Otherwise, why would anyone be
developing an angry tone or resorting to insulting their opponent -- or
viewing someone as their "opponent" at all, for that matter? This
isn't, the last time I checked, a contest of any kind -- well, I am not
setting out to create one. Others (not necessarily you) apparently do
wish to make some sort of contest of things though, and should be
advised that if they insist on having one with me, then I will play to
win and I am willing to fight as dirty as they are to do so...

> I'm not challenging them, or deriding, or
> anything like that. I didn't say what you did was wrong. I'm saying that
> your actions have likely triggered the response you got.

Of course they did; we seem to disagree over the mechanism of this
triggering however. My actions, in and of themselves, you must admit
have been innocuous. Surely a refusal to accept someone else's advice
without question (while being willing to accept it conditional on
further information, evidence, or what-have-you) can't be a crime, can
it? This isn't, after all, some theocratic state whose orthodoxy must
not be questioned, right? I mean, I do hope this froup doesn't have its
own resident Taliban warming up their hot pokers and what-have-you to
put the infidels to an inquisition? Well, unfortunately, the evidence
is that there may be one or two wannabes contending for the Tin Hitler
of the Week Award(tm) hereabouts...

All I did, though, was respond to a suggestion with "yes, but"s, "but
what if"s, "I have a question, though"s, and "why"s, rather than
unquestioning acceptance.

Makes you wonder, doesn't it?


> If this is the type
> of responses you wanted, then great: you're getting what you want. If this
> isn't the type of response you want, then you'll probably need to change
> your actions.

Unfortunately, there are a couple of problems with that.
1. If I change my response to always be submissive, then I'm being
implicitly dishonest, since some of the times I obviously don't
actually agree with someone more "senior" here, or at least have
questions or reservations.
2. Those questions or reservations would never be addressed.
3. Widespread adoption of that type of subservient attitude of "don't
ever question your elders" stifles freedom of inquiry and is grossly
counterproductive in the long run. Doing so myself would therefore set
a bad example.
4. Bowing down whenever confronted, even when you don't think the
authoritarian behavior is legitimate or you do think that whatever
their authority, the person may not actually be right, teaches the
bullying types that they can push you around and get whatever they want
from you -- whether that's your lunch money or something more
important. As soon as you do that you have lost.

OK, more than a couple of problems.

> It has nothing to do with right or wrong, only with cause and
> effect.

Above see some effects of doing what the more pushy people here
apparently want. In particular, note that it still wouldn't satisfy
them -- the bully that gets you to say "uncle" comes for your lunch
money next; if they learn that you'll give them that, before long they
want your clothing, textbooks, or whatever else. Then they own you,
lock stock and barrel. This applies at every stage of life and in
pretty much every society, by the way, not just in grade school. Once
you give those types an inch, they take a mile.

Right now, one or two people here got really annoyed that I didn't
simply accept whatever they said unquestioningly and, instead, had the
sheer nerve to actually ask for some clarifications and to express
reservations and seek further information first. I can live with that
far better than I can live with being owned by those same personages.

> >>     Maybe one of the things you do differently is to believe that someone
> >> asks you a question, they are not trying to help you.
> >
> > When the question seems to be aimed toward an intent of trying to prove
> > some kind of perceived inadequacy of mine, rather than toward gathering
> > information in a neutral way? You betcha.
>
>     Okay, so maybe if you STOP doing this, you wouldn't get the undesirable
> responses you seem to be getting.

Stop doing what? Ignoring questions whose sole purpose is some kind of
entrapment, or which are at best irrelevant? I don't recall the group
charter being that a condition of help (or acceptance or whatever) is
that n00bs have to answer every question put to them. What if one of
them asks me for my credit card number -- I suppose I should trust them
with that, too?

>     I'm telling you "Stop perceiving things as being personal attacks."
>     You're responding "But they *ARE* personal attacks!"
>
>     Can you see the circularity of this?

What I can see is something I have no reason to trust -- after all, one
of the things people sometimes do is to make jokes at the expense of
some poor idiot, then if the idiot gets offended, convince the poor
idiot that they're laughing with, not at, him, or something of the
sort. All the while chuckling behind his back.

It should have occurred to the people considering such behavior that it
is highly improbable that anyone posting to comp.lang.java.programmer
is dumb enough to fall for the old "I know that *sounded* like an
insult, but it really isn't" routine. :P

For the record, I will indicate some things that I consider to qualify
as implicitly insulting (I assume that what's explicitly insulting
isn't in dispute):
* Any suggestion that someone is of subnormal intelligence, even
implicit
* Openly referring to anything as a "dumb idea" unless it's truly,
spectacularly, indisputably dumb, like Bush's foreign policy.
* Disagreeing with someone contentiously (i.e. "you're wrong" as
opposed to "I disagree") except where it's a clear, easily decided
factual question (so, "you're wrong" is a fair response to "2 + 2 =
5").
* Any suggestion that someone is inadequate in any way, e.g. that they
"should know" or "should have known" something or that "everybody
knows" this, that, or the other. Obviously, they didn't know.
Automatically placing the blame for that with the person, rather than
considering that maybe what you consider "obvious" isn't obvious to
them, or what's well known to you and a bunch of your associates isn't
widespread household knowledge, and considering that their google
searches may not have turned anything up, that the "obvious" search
query to you or to anyone who already knows the answer might not be so
obvious to someone who only knows the *question*, and that they might
not have performed any searches because it never occurred to them to do
so because they didn't even know that whatever it is you think they
should have searched for was even out there, or that it was relevant to
their particular circumstances, or what-have-you.

That last one is of particular significance since it seems to occur
frequently in technically-oriented newsgroups, and it often seems to be
unintentional -- a chronic "sigh, more stupid newbies" attitude problem
rather than arising from hostility directed specifically at just one
individual. There is frequently a patronizing attitude whose underlying
assumption appears to be that anyone who didn't already know X is ipso
facto a moron and that trumpeting one's suspicion of someone's
moronhood loudly and in public is somehow a good idea. A remarkable
fact is that every one of the patronizing arseholes that behave this
way was, at one time or another, a newbie his- or herself; not that
you'd ever guess from the way they act! It usually goes along with an
attitude that they should command instant and unquestioning respect,
even from someone who doesn't know them from Adam yet. Actual overt
hostility frequently arises from this personality type if it dawns on
them that one of the latest crop of n00bs is, in fact, failing to
behave as if they walk on water or, worse, outright questioning them or
asking for clarification or expressing reservations about something
they suggested.

As for this particular thread? I can't recall any specific examples
word-for-word, but there were several thinly-veiled "only an idiot
would do it that way"s implied at one time or another, as well as some
less veiled, though still implied, contentions that I was woefully
inadequate in my use of Google, mainly because it failed to occur to me
to try queries containing "applet" while develping a standalone
application and so forth.

One thing I notice that no-one has addressed was a point I raised
yesterday about the woeful inadequacy of the search engines themselves.
It remains true that it's much easier to find an answer with a search
engine when you know the answer than it is when you only know the
question, and that, in the latter case, it is not always even possible.
It follows that someone's failure to get an answer (or their getting an
answer, but not the one you consider to be the "right" answer) using
Google (or MSN or whatever) isn't probative when it comes to judging
them on charges of first-degree stupidity; it's very likely the case
that they are innocent of such charges if they only knew the question.
Especially as there are many ways of phrasing most questions, and
search engines tend to give very different answers for some of the ways
of phrasing the very same question.

> > I simply wasn't expecting to have to defend all of my design choices
> > and suchlike in this crowd, that's all.
>
>     So just don't defend them.

When they are attacked, I have no choice; otherwise I appear weak, not
to mention stupid. Silence suggests assent, after all, so if I just
meekly go away (or worse, make an instant 180 degree change of opinion)
the instant I'm disagreed with, I might as well change my handle to
"floormat" and hand over my lunch money pre-emptively before they beat
me up for it first, now that I've told them they'll get it from me
eventually.

> You posted your solution. Someone posts "Here's a better way to do it."
> You read it, say "Ok" (either to yourself, or make an actual post saying just that), and
> then go on, living your life.

This is such spectacularly stupid advice that I'm afraid I once again
suspect you may have ulterior motives of your own. After all, if you
intend to take advantage of me, it's to your advantage to convince me
to meekly accept everything without question, no matter what I think or
what questions or caveats occur to me about whatever is suggested.

> If you reply "Well, no, my idea is better because...", then expect to get
> more replies saying "Actually, no, *MY* idea is better because..." and so
> on.

False dichotomy, and a review of this thread will show that I never
said "Well, no, my idea is better because...". My response was more
like "Your idea sounds like it might involve extra work, and have these
possible problems, care to clarify?" along with "My idea is clearly
sufficient for this particular case, while yours may very well be
superior for a larger or more general case but in this instance it
would amount to swatting a fly with a small nuclear device".

At no time did I claim "my" idea was universally better; only that it
wasn't universally worse. One thing I did do was ask for additional
information, and question certain aspects of "your" idea that I wasn't
sure wouldn't introduce complications. Oh, and that "my" idea was the
first thing to come up in my Googling, before any hint of "your" idea,
a fact that might indicate inadequacies in current-generation search
engines more than it indicates that either idea is "better" or that I'm
"too stupid to use Google properly" or whatever it was one of the
nastier responses suggested.

> > I ask for information about a
> > specific issue, not for lecturing;
>
>     You can't control what other people post on Usenet. All you can do is
> ask a question. If someone gives you the answer you want, then great. If
> not, then hey, you're no worst off than before, right?

Unfortunately, if some of the responses are hostile, then I am, since
there are now public allegations about me that are in need of a
rebuttal of some sort or another (silence indicating assent, it is not
a viable option in such cases). The minimum consequence is that I waste
time putting out fires that I could spend coding or whatever. The
maximum consequence is that I miss one, and someone reads something
negative about me without reading a corresponding refutation and begins
to believe something false and unflattering about me that they might
not have, given the missing refutation to consider as well. Possibly
many someones. At the same time, whoever launched the bomb that got
through now knows they can poison other people towards me. If I
actually ignore the whole lot, or even worse, cop to whatever they
accuse me of (including implicitly, by doing an instant about-face when
anyone suggests I'm wrong or whatever), then whoever did it owns me and
knows it.

> > and being, as near as I can figure,
> > involuntarily signed up for some sort of informal remedial training is
> > downright insulting.
>
>     Are you referring to my posts as an informal remedial training?

No; I am referring to those posts that implied that my knowledge of
(name one: Java, programming in general, search engines) is in some way
inadequate and any that adopted a lecturing tone. (The same awful tone
I've seen used way, way too often in all technically-oriented groups,
that of the parent lecturing a small child or the teacher a
particularly slow student. You know the tone.)

>     Again, you arguing with me using logic.

Of course I am. We are seeking to discover truth and to engineer
sophisticated tools here, not to sweep the next gubernatorial primaries
or whatever.

> I'm telling you that no matter
> how logical your arguments are, that does NOT change the emotional impact of
> your choice of words. You're surprised by the reactions you're getting on
> this newsgroup, right? I'm trying to explain to you why you got the
> reactions you got so that you won't be so surprised in the future.

This is an odd thing indeed to be telling me, when I am the one
pointing out that other people putting undertones of patronizing
tolerance-of-the-stupid-n00bs and the like into their posts are putting
people off even deigning to ask questions around here. I, on the other
hand, have done nothing of the sort -- when there has been emotional
content in any of my posts, it's either been surprise about something
or disappointment in some continued misunderstanding or continued
hostility. Yes, that has included incredulity at being apparently
expected to take certain posters' advice on faith and never dare raise
questions, however honestly. As well it should.

Or are you claiming that the mere *fact* of saying anything like "yes,
but" or "won't that add xyz complexity/work/overhead?" constitutes
something with an "emotional impact"? I suppose the emotional impact of
"Holy Christ, not only didn't he simply bow down and kiss my feet, he
actually had the nerve to QUESTION ME!" -- in which case it will only
have that impact on precisely those people for whom such an impact is
richly deserved, in my opinion.

> I'm trying to share this revelation with you, so that you will
> understand why, although we'd both rather it not be the case, sometimes you
> *DO* have to factor in emotions to explain human behaviour.

Explain it, yes. Control it, certainly, if that were my goal; however,
it is not.

My goal was simply to answer a particular question. It has since
changed, now being to extricate myself from this whole mess with the
general belief maintained that I at no time did anything wrong, nor is
my IQ abnormally low, nor any of the various other things that have of
late been suggested or implied. I have also been endeavoring to further
understand the phenomenon that this sort of crazy response pattern
embodies; and in this particular instance, to find out what precisely
my critics think they would have done differently in the same position
I was in. (So far, the responses there amount to a couple of Google
queries that they would not really have used in the same exact position
I was in, with the same knowledge I had at that time, as these queries
were clearly contrived with hindsight or otherwise contained query
terms no reasonable person should assume would ever have occurred to me
-- "applet" being just the most egregious example of such a query term.
So, regarding at least the trumped-up charge of Google incompetence, so
far I'm Teflon...)

One thing I would certainly like to know: what emotions, aside from
indignation at being treated as an equal, prompt behavior like this?:
* Criticizing someone you don't know from Adam within minutes of first
meeting them.
* Even when pressed, not providing any sensible response to the fairly
basic question of what you'd have done differently in their place in
the same situation knowing only what they knew.
* When the original matter seems to have been resolved, continuing to
pile on the person.
* Criticizing them even after they claim to have solved their problem
without your supposedly-indispensable help.

Well, the latter isn't actually hard to understand -- it must be deeply
threatening to someone with a certain personality type to find that
someone has, in fact, gotten away with *not* using their advice and yet
had a positive outcome. Why, if everybody else did that ...!

One irony is that the advice in this instance is probably actually
superior for a large class of situations, just not for the specific
case that arose this time...

>     You're surprised that you had to be on the defensive, right?

More like "disappointed". Nothing surprises me on Usenet anymore.

> I'm not. Do
> you want to know why? Then listen to my advise. Don't dismiss it out of
> hand, because of some perception that I'm with "them" and therefore
> "against" you. You don't have to agree with my advise, just listen to it.
> Really think about it.

[Error on first token of next line: > found where constructive
suggestion expected. Construct incomplete. Parse terminated.]

Oops. Looks like you have only half of a control structure there. You
forgot to include the next couple of lines where you explain how you
would have asked the original question differently, and once some
arsehole popped up and told you what an idiot you were for googling the
subject some more and then going ahead and doing it yourself instead of
waiting sixteen hours for them to get around to climbing up onto their
high horse and telling you the correct way to do it, what you would
have said back to them.

And it better not turn out that the latter would have been "Yes sir,
sorry sir, won't do it again sir, oh, and do you want fries with that?"
:P Not when it's since become apparent that I had perfectly legitimate
questions about the suggestion in question, for instance regarding
whether it would introduce certain problems of its own that I could
reasonably foresee weren't out of the question for instance.

OK, let me ask you a fairly direct question.

Suppose you were in the exact situation I was. Suppose the following
had happened:
1. You'd had a particular question arise regarding how to.
2. You'd googled it and found nothing that appeared to be relevant.
3. You asked here.
4. After some hours went by without a single response (in a group that
usually generates dozens of posts an hour), you googled some more and
tried some more exotic queries and found something that appeared to
describe what you wanted to accomplish.
5. With some adjustments, you made the solution fit, and it actually
worked as planned.
6. You returned here to report "nevermind, I found this and it seems to
work adequately for this case".
7. The immediate response (in much less than one hour) is clearly and
strongly disapproving of the method you used, and by extension of you.
It mentions an alternative method that you know relatively little
about, with the implicit assertion that you should know all about it
too and if you don't already then you're probably a moron. Implied is
that you should immediately rewrite your code to use their suggested
method, even though the code currently works, with the vague impression
that the so-and-so telling you this believes that if you don't change
it right that instant your computer might catch fire or something.
8. You consider the alternative method, and a moderate number of
questions occur to you, particularly regarding the ways that its
implementation might complicate your project relative to how it is
currently set up. In particular, the method seems likely to complicate
the build process, although that may be a complication your build tools
can automate for you. Nonetheless, at minimum it requires learning
additional features of your existing build tools, possibly even some
whole new build tools, and not just a bit of API here or there; it may
also involve complicating the startup of your app with additional error
recovery and other nuisances. As such, for your particular current
circumstances, you're rather dubious that it's worth it, and for the
longer run, you'd like to know more before accepting (or rejecting) the
suggestion to use for similar purposes in the future.
9. So, it comes time to respond to the surprising and hostile message
you received...

What do you do?

How, exactly, would you have responded, and what differences from how I
responded would you consider significant? Keep in mind that "no
response" is not a valid solution, since a) it would clearly fail the
objectives of discovering more about the possible complications and
determining the information relevant to a risk/reward tradeoff when
choosing between the two options in the future, including when choosing
whether and under what circumstances to change the current
implementation, and b) it sends the clear signal that people can treat
you like dirt and you'll just let them walk all over you. Also, you
can't say you'd just go and change the code to implement the other
suggestion -- keep in mind that not all the details of exactly how to
do so without causing new problems were not even disclosed to me until
earlier today, and that it's cheating to assume any knowledge of the
alternative proposed solution. The person who in a
less-than-perfectly-diplomatic post told you you were doing it wrong
and how to do it right didn't actually tell you how to do it in any
real detail; it is more like they merely named their method and little
else. You may assume that the API side of making their solution work
can be discovered with Google at that point, and you may not assume
anything else about the solution, because you aren't supposed to
actually know. I didn't, in the circumstances in question, so any
suggestion of something I "should" have done differently that I
couldn't have actually done without knowledge I didn't actually have is
clearly worthless to me, and will be if a similar situation arises in
the future involving a different "at least two ways to do it" problem
and a vaguely specified second way to do it.

So, please now state for the record what your response would have been,
and how you expect it to have produced a less hostile response, while
nonetheless a) discovering the needed information vis-a-vis
implementing their suggestion with a minimum of fuss, and how much
additional fuss was unavoidable with it and b) ensuring that it was
crystal clear to every witness that you were in no way acceding to the
various suggestions that you were ...

No, nevermind.

This will never work. In fact, by the time the first response arrived
it was already clearly far too late.

1. I asked a "how to" question -- first googling, then posting here.
2. Hours went by without a reply.
3. More googling.
4. Found something.
5. It worked.
6. I posted back here that I'd done xyz, which had worked.
7. Lambasted.

At step 7, failure to avoid being on the defensive had already
occurred, which means that at step 6 it was already unavoidable. Which
means that if there's anything I should have done differently, it's at
step 6 (or maybe step 1).

Unfortunately, close analysis of both steps fails to reveal anything
obviously flawed.

Let us actually examine the relevant postings, items 1, 6, and 7 above:

First, the initial question.

> Hrm. How to go about doing this?
>
> I want to give a Java application a window icon in a manner that is
> independent of how it is installed, etc.
>
> The trick is obtaining an Image object for myJFrame.setIconImage().
> Loading it from a URL means it won't work without a working network
> connection, and I need to host the image somewhere. Every copy of the
> app running anywhere in the world will, on startup, hit that host with
> a request for the file(!). Loading it from a file path requires a
> separate installer that sets the image into a specific directory.
> Putting it in a JAR file with the app means learning a big new chunk of
> API, plus it won't work when running in the development environment
> rather than as a standalone executable JAR.
>
> This suggests doing the ListMessageBundle sort of thing, and somehow
> packaging it as a class -- an Image subclass, presumably. Is there a
> tool for turning a jpeg, gif, or png into Java source code for an Image
> subclass that will, when instantiated, behave as the appropriate jpeg?
>
> I don't have the google-fu to find this -- searches for queries like
> "image resource class java" didn't do much for me. Damn, we need *real*
> natural language search. :P

I fail to see anything "emotionally wrong" with the above. It provoked
a "you idiot" response all on its own, as I recall, regarding my use of
"URL"; admittedly I might have been clearer that I meant an internet
URL rather than a local-file URL, which I covered separately under
"Loading it from a file path...".

In fact, I seem to have anticipated that there'd be something
resembling getResource as an option, but that it could introduce
complications, particularly when the time came that it had to work
identically in the development environment and when deployed. I even
recognized that there might be two approaches, comparable to putting
string resources in either a ListMessageBundle or (implied) a
PropertyMessageBundle.

Now, perhaps, was the time for anyone who favored the latter to say it
and explain how to do it without introducing the complications I sought
to avoid introducing. Unfortunately, nobody did.

So far, I don't see any fault in anything I did, or any thing I might
have done differently. Waiting longer for some sort of a response could
very well have meant waiting anywhere from another two minutes to
another two whole days, or even eternity, and obviously I had no way of
knowing in advance which. So it's also clear that after some amount of
time, if I hadn't seen a response I'd have to take further proactive
steps. So my proceeding without waiting longer for a response can't be
faulted either.

Step six:

> Anyway I found something interesting. My google-fu isn't as weak as I
> thought -- I was eventually able to dredge up a way to encode icons
> into a class file.

<technical details snipped -- it's safe to say those have none of this
so-called "emotional impact">

> But it actually works, and the source code is completely
> self-contained, without requiring any extra files besides the .java
> files. Which is what I was hoping to accomplish.
>
> Thanks anyway. :)

I don't see much of anything to complain about here, either. There were
a couple initial responses that arrived between my getting it to work
and my posting the above quoted material, which mentioned getResource.
I'd already made it work in under 20 minutes, and those arrived while I
spent a further hour or two messing around in photoshop and testing
various things to get the effect I wanted with the image's detailed
structure.

The posting I then made basically just says I solved my problem.
Nothing seems to be questionable -- for instance, I don't see anything
to suggest an attitude of "nyah nyah, did it without you lot!" or
anything of that nature, in case that's the sort of no-no you were
thinking I might have committed.

Next replies are fairly innocuous. On the one hand we have:

> What's the advantage of this approach compared to using getResource?

which does however imply two dubious things:
1. There is a sense that the poster thinks I've done something either
wrong or at least questionable.
2. There is the impression that the poster thinks I read the earlier
post and ignored it, when in fact that post didn't arrive until after
I'd found and applied the other approach. (It had arrived before I
*posted* mentioning that I'd gotten it working.) Moreover, there is the
impression that the poster thinks I either should have read that post
(i.e. waited for it and not gone ahead and done anything on my own) or
that I shouldn't have ignored it (I hadn't).

Already the downhill slide of the thread is evident, and my conscience
is clean as a sheet.

> Wouldn't it be MUCH easier to put gif/jpg/png files directly into the jar...

Implies I have a jar, or even that if I don't I *should* have one. This
may merely reflect a misconception that I was further ahead in
development than I was, and had packaged something for distribution and
beta-testing already, or whatever.

But by this point it's already too late anyway. The two replies quoted
there indicate that avoiding having to defend my code was already a
moot point at that time. Particularly "Wouldn't it be MUCH easier...".

So, I think I have determined that there is not anything I should have
done differently. It was not possible for me to avoid this situation.
There is nothing with an "emotional tone" in my postings up to that
point that could possibly be in any way provocative of hostility. In
fact, as near as I can figure, the causal chain was quite simply:

* I find method A using google
* I apply method A
* I mention applying method A
* Because I didn't apply method B, people promptly attack my choice of
method A, ignoring the fact that it wasn't actually much of a choice
because at the time I had not been made aware of method B.

There only seem to be three ways to avoid it, two of which are
dependent on luck:
* I could have happened to stumble onto method B before A, instead of
the other way around.
* I could have waited longer for replies before forging ahead;
ultimately, it was a roll of the dice, both how long before the first
reply actually arrived and how long I'd wait at a maximum before
forging ahead without seeing one.
* I could have kept mum about the method I found and applied, and
simply stopped posting to the thread well before any questioning of my
choices occured in it.

The third option is the only one not dependent on luck, and it instead
requires what I would consider to be bad netiquette:
* Keeping a solution to yourself;
* Not telling people that have heard a question from you that they can
safely quit working on answering it as it's a moot point.
I might add that the thought of *not* disclosing when and how I'd
solved my problem had not even occurred to me, nor do I think it should
have, let alone that such behavior should be rewarded. Yet by
comparison with what we now, with 20/20 hindsight, know was the only
alternative, it is evident that such behavior *is* rewarded around
here! Not good, and indicative that there are problems here that
clearly are not in any way my responsibility; I am in fact just the
messenger who (inconveniently, for some) exposed these problems.

There's a sort of fourth option, never posting anything about this
particular problem to this group in the first place, but again, I was
bound to eventually if I didn't find a solution independently in a
certain amount of time. In fact, it's another luck-dependent option
similar to the second one above: on the one hand, how quickly I manage
to turn up something relevant with google or other research methods; on
the other, how many fruitless attempts at same (or how much time spent)
before resorting to posting to usenet. If the former had been faster or
the latter slower by enough, the situation might again have been
completely avoided, but again that was always going to be a roll of the
dice.

Ultimately, there seems to have been nothing I should have done
differently, and only one thing I could have done differently, which
was never to give any detail of any solution I came up with (lest it be
criticised). Once I did give any such information, if someone chose to
attack it, the goal of avoiding being put on the defensive would be
thwarted; the ability to ensure against that was out of my hands at
that point.

It seems the choice was between bad netiquette and being potentially
attacked, then. And that means that the real problem here isn't me or
my "emotional impact" or anything of the sort at all; it is people who
respond to earnest and honest posters with hostility and criticism, and
who thereby punish good netiquette and in effect reward bad netiquette.

Well, I suppose they don't see it that way. They think I should have
done the *fifth* option, which was to know all about their method and
use it in the first place and either never bother them or ask the
question I asked but then post all about how I'd discovered the
solution they like and applied it.

Of course, this was never actually an option at all, given the
information I actually had at the time and the luck of the various
draws with Google. Far be it from them to see that though. In fact,
they clearly don't think that anything is wrong with someone being put
on the defensive, for that matter, and are probably quite happy with
the way things *actually* turned out, even if they're the only ones.

My response to anyone (not naming names, and besides, this way I
include lurkers and those who kept their mouths shut in this particular
instance) is simple: if people asking questions here or coming up with
and then disclosing their own solutions here really, really bothers
you, then I suggest you leave. If you don't post or even read cljp
anymore they won't bother you that way anymore. I guarantee it. And you
should note that by responding to them by treating them like you think
they're idiots instead, you are not helping them or, in the long run,
yourself or anyone else.

>     I don't have much to add. I just want to point out that it's not
> unlikely that you may have found a bug. Once again, I'm have no disagreement
> with this. 1.6 is in beta, and so it probably has bugs. If I were King of
> Usenet, I'd say everyone is allowed to claim that they found bugs if they
> wanted to, and no one is allowed ot hold that against them.
>
>     But I'm not King of Usenet. I can't control how people react to your
> post. But I can observe it, and share my observations with you. My
> observations is that people don't react well when you claim you've found a
> bug.

Even when I don't actually do so, but merely indicate that the
possibility has occurred to me. Even when it is in beta software. Even
when it is in fact an apparent regression against the previous version.
Even when all of the above.

> Don't claim you've found a bug.

Ever? Not even when the behavior is observed to have appeared with a
new version? Even when that new version is a beta? Even if I only claim
that I "might" have found one?

You are asking me to be dishonest, and that I won't do without a far
better reason than because someone professes "I don't like it when you
do that". Certainly not when the reason given is "Someone else doesn't
like it when you do that". Secondhand hearsay is inadmissible, I'm
afraid. :P

>     Abstract the details, and the advice [quoted from the jargon file] applies to
> this usenet group as well, IMHO.

If so, then my saying there "might" be a bug when I've observed a
regression in beta software certainly seems to be legitimate.

Moving on, now...

> > My manner of thinking is affected by the behavior I observe. Those
> > whose responses to me are confrontational in any way begin to be
> > treated as a "them" I'm "versus", because they are evidently treating
> > me that way. Those whose responses seem collaborative, rather than
> > competitive or outright combative, are not treated that way.
>
>     So do you think I'm "against" you, or "with" you?

Your behavior is inconsistent with either, and not perfectly consistent
with "neutral" either. On the one hand, you implied that I might
possess subnormal intelligence, which lands squarely in column one.
Your continuing this insane thread itself lands in that column. A
couple of statements have landed in column two, and the majority in
column three, including polite disagreement here and there. However,
you still seem to perceive that there's something I'm doing incorrectly
here, and since there isn't (the most detailed refutation yet is given
above) there are problems classifying your stance as "neutral". There's
also the "so stupid, it's unbelievable" advice to accept everything on
faith that is said by an authority figure around here -- ridiculous in
a secular democracy, doubly so in a science-and-engineering context,
and downright ludicrous in an unmoderated Usenet newsgroup, seeing as
a) there's no such thing as an authority in one of those and b) even if
there were, there aren't any badges, uniforms, rank insignia, or other
cues to go by, and I don't know most of the people here from Adam. I
suppose I should just assume that *everyone else* here is an
"authority" for the purpose of deciding who to instantly believe and
who never to question, just to be sure? :P

It was that last occurrence, which was earlier today, that disqualified
you from an "apparently neutral" designation. You appear to be playing
your own game here, although it's admittedly a subtle one, and
apparently more so than those of most of the others that are playing
any sort of game here at all. Unless that really was just a momentary
lapse of judgment. Still, if so, it was a remarkable lapse indeed. In
case you forget:

> You posted your solution. Someone posts "Here's a better way to do it."
> You read it, say "Ok" (either to yourself, or make an actual post saying just that), and
> then go on, living your life.

This was what you suggested. Basically, "Assume that everybody else in
the world is right and you are wrong whenever you don't agree with
someone else". If everyone took the same advice, we'd still be living
in the stone age; progress would be impossible. The reductio ad
absurdum of this "advice" is to trot out the usual suspects: Galileo,
Copernicus, Einstein ... All of them overturned a paradigm; all enabled
some new progress; all of them would have failed utterly if they had
been taught to never, ever, ever, ever dare question anyone who
disagreed with you and to just believe anything else anyone ever said
(or even just to never suggest any alternative publicly).

Now this is not to suggest I'm some Galileo, and the people
recommending getResource are flat-earthers. Clearly they are nothing of
the sort, and I don't doubt that getResource has its uses, and plenty
of them to boot. What I do doubt is that anyone should honestly
recommend that people never question others or express doubt in what
they said, or even just that they shouldn't doubt those who claim
authority.

But then, that isn't what you said, is it? You said that *I* shouldn't
question those who claim authority, rather than that nobody should. Why
is that -- am I somehow ineligible to do what I've heard is actually
the duty of everyone in a democracy? That would suggest that you
believe me to be spectacularly incompetent in some way, rather like
suggesting that someone is too stupid to be allowed to vote or
something. If so, you can't claim to be "neutral" while holding an
obviously hostile opinion of me, now can you? On the other hand, if you
were really hostile, it would be rather dumb of *you* to use something
that might trick a three-year-old but will just alert anyone else to
possible ulterior motives. Well, then again, if you do believe me to be
really dumb, you might be forgiven for thinking I'd fall for something
that silly ... but then again, maybe it was something you honestly
believed.

Damn. Now it's starting to look like *you* can safely be accused of
being dumb, without much likelihood of being wrong. Either you said
that honestly believing it (dumb!) or you said that thinking to trick
me and thinking I might actually fall for it (dumb!!) or you said
something that came out extraordinarily different in meaning from
anything you even intended (dumb!!!) ...

Perhaps you can enlighten me as to what you really intended with that
particular piece of "advice". Then I can better classify you. (As to
intent/neutrality, as well as IQ).

> Either way, you'd be
> wrong. I'm neutral. I'm providing what I consider to be good advice to you,
> just like I try to provide what I consider to be good advice to everyone
> else who posts on comp.lang.java.programmer and for which I believe I
> actually know the solution. And I don't particularly care whether you accept
> that advice or not, just like I don't particularly care whether anyone else
> in this newsgroup accepts the advice I give them or not.

This raises two issues. One is the claim that you consider the thing I
quoted above to be "good advice to me". Do you honestly believe it is
best for me to keep my head down and meekly accept anything I'm told by
anyone who puts on airs? The other is the use of the phrase "...believe
I actually know the solution". It implies a belief that there's always
exactly one solution, when in fact there's frequently several (most
problems) or none (the halting problem comes to mind).

> >>     Sorry to be blunt but IMHO, your stories are distracting and largely
> >> uninteresting.
> >
> > You are free to ignore them if you perceive them that way.
>
>     Thank you.

It's a little late for that. Instead of ignoring them, you criticized
them; and then you didn't even take the hint that you should have
ignored them if you didn't like them (and that, since you didn't, you
should apologize). :P

> > That may be frustration at broken behavior of gmail leaking out. I have
> > yet to find anywhere to actually render feedback about such things that
> > actually goes anywhere but into a black hole, or anywhere to discuss it
> > with other users that doesn't require registration.
>
>     Tried e-mailing google?

See the bit of the material you quoted that mentions a black hole.

> > PofN?
>
>     That's the username they post under.

It's actually "PofN", rather than something else that you contracted to
that in the (incorrect) assumption that I'd nonetheless know who you
were talking about and be able to (how? Magic?) reconstruct the long
version?

Come on. I know usenetters, and if there's one thing they love to do
more than baffle you with bullshit, it's aggravate you with acronyms,
half of them made up on the spot and the rest still unintelligible to
most people even with some educated guessing and a google search or
two. Which of course lets them separate out the cognoscenti from the
rabble, so they can ensure they insult and mistreat every last one of
the latter without any danger of a friendly-fire incident occurring
among the former. (As soon as you see an unfamiliar acronym, you've
already lost -- if you ask what it is you get flamed; otherwise, you
either don't know or you waste time searching google and still don't
know, and the fact that you don't know will quickly become evident, and
*then* you get flamed. Short acronyms are the worst -- googling those
will invariably turn up sixty different things they can mean to
different people, and the contextual clues that might help you guess
which are probably locked up in other acronyms you'd have to crack
first, creating a classic chicken-and-egg problem. Only the
bog-standard LOL, IMHO, etc. are at all safe...)

>     The teacher tells the story of an old man who walks down a road with
> lots of small sharp pebbles, and as he steps on these pebbles, they cut his
> feet and cause him pain. The old man has some sheets of leather, and if he
> places this leather between his food and the rock, the rocks aren't able to
> penetrate the leather, and thus cannot cut his feet. Unfortunately, the old
> man does not have enough leather to cover the entire road. What should he
> do?
>
>     The student is supposed to respond that he could wrap his feet in the
> leather, thus making shoes. And this is supposed to teach the student that
> it is far easier to change yourself, than to change the world around you.

It's impossible to avoid being insulted if the insults are unprovoked,
if "don't provoke the insulters" is what you mean to suggest. See
above, where the only provocation needed was, apparently, to post to
the group. Nothing else, such as to actually say something rude or
controversial or even something questionable and outrageously so. In
fact, it is quite clear that even if you restrict your posting to
good-faith, honest, largely logical content with little emotional
content and no harmful intent of any kind, you may nonetheless be
insulted in reply. Whereas that's to be expected in places like, say,
alt.flame, it's rather disappointing here.

>     People are insulting you, and you don't like it. You could try to
> convince everybody to stop insulting you, or you could just ignore the
> insults. Both solutions work, but one requires much more time, energy and
> effort than the other.

Eh what? No, you seem to have misunderstood. The options are to avoid
the insults even being said or to rebut them. Ignoring them is
emphatically not an option, since silence implies assent. Or have you
forgotten that part?

> >>     You might want to make it more explicit that you're awaiting the
> >> standard solution. From my reading of this thread, my impression is that
> >> you
> >> would not accept the standard solution, even if provided with it.
> >
> > That's a curious impression, since no emprical evidence for such a
> > claim existed -- nobody had provided it.
>
>     I can explain to you how I arrived at that impression: You are
> criticizing the "standard" solution, citing your solution as being superior.

This is not only false, it's a complete joke. At no time did I do
anything of the sort. I asked about various things that occurred to me
as possible problems with the "standard" solution, and I pointed out
specific advantages of "my" solution (which do not in any way imply it
to be superior -- a few ticks under the "pro" column does not mean
there aren't even more under the "con" column, after all).

I am starting to suspect, however, that people honestly believe that I
believe what you are saying they believe I believe, and that they
actually do think that my putting a couple ticks under a "pro" column
means I've decided that choice is superior already. If their grasp of
even the most basic rules of logic is as terrible as you suppose,
though, then WHAT THE BLAZING HELL ARE THEY DOING IN comp.*?!
Logically, someone who can't tell the difference between putting some
entries in a debit column of a ledger and actually being in debt should
probably be unable to program his way out of a paper bag.

> > Why does anyone here bother to sling it liberally around?
>
>     If you really want to know why, first I advise you to read some of the
> other posts, and see if you agree with me that most of the time, people
> don't sling disapproval around so much.

What other posts? I'm not reading the 5000 a day that get posted here
just on your recommendation; I have far too many other demands on my
time, and this froup, of late, is already consuming rather more than
its fair share.

> It seems to happen mostly to your
> posts. If you agree with me on that, then consider that you maybe you're
> doing something different compared to all the other posters.

Yes, I'm actually asking questions when they occur to me and asking
about possible caveats or other consequences when *those* occur to me,
apparently in direct contravention of standard procedure (but in direct
compliance with common freakin' sense). I think we already established
that. Now we're going in circles.

> > Maybe they
> > shouldn't -- it can't serve any useful purpose after all.
>
>     You're right. They shouldn't, and it probably does not serve any useful
> purpose.

In other words, you finally agree with me that I've done nothing wrong?
Hooray!

>     But does that mean they'll stop? Probably not. So once again, I'm
> suggesting that it's far easier to just shrug off the disapproval than to
> try and convince everybody who's disapproving to stop doing it.

Unfortunately, it isn't that simple. Incorrect disapproval in front of
third parties must be counteracted in some way. Otherwise, the
attackers succeed in what is undoubtedly their principal objective,
which isn't to convince me (or they'd have settled on agreeing to
disagree with me on some points by now), but to convince some audience
of theirs that I'm an idiot. Once someone is making an effort to do
something like that, it becomes necessary for me to make an equal and
opposite effort, so that the effects will (roughly, at least) cancel
out. (This can take two forms: defensive, or the alternative you don't
want to see come to pass, counterattacking and raising the stakes to
include *their* reputations. Then escalating if need be. Mutually
assured destruction. With luck, the specter of such an occurrence will
serve as an effective deterrent and this thread will die down without
anyone actually trotting out the serious WMDs...)

>     Well, that wasn't the intent.

What was the intent of the "advice" to "just say OK" whenever anyone
accused me of being wrong?

I'm still waiting on that.

I still can't determine what game you're playing, if any. The two
hypotheses that best explain your behavior, "playing some subtle game
or other" and "honest, neutral, but prone to fits of confusion" seem to
do about equally good jobs...

Oliver Wong wrote:
> > That's it? And it will be found by getResource during testing *and*
> > after deployment? (I assume using a relative URI like
> > getResource("resources/foo.gif")?
>
>     Why don't you try it and see?

a) The dev environment isn't right in front of me at the moment
b) I don't have a lot of time right now for random fooling around
without guaranteed results. Experimenting can be fun, but expecting
everyone to do it at all times to find out anything new is a recipe for
disaster.
c) If you knew all of this, why the hell didn't you mention it days
ago?

>     Each person has their own reason. I just read the Joe Attardi branch of
> the thread, so his reason is fresh in my mind: Because he kept asking you
> what build process you used, and you haven't told him that you're using
> Eclipse.

I've mentioned Eclipse so many times in this thread that I'd need to
use exponential notation if you insisted on my quoting an exact figure.
:P

I mentioned it in this thread *at least* as early as Nov. 20, 3 full
days ago. A quick scan of the older postings in date order shows that
much. Joe Attardi is way, way behind on his reading if he only just got
to that post tonight, and that would imply that many of his responses
were to postings he hadn't gotten around to reading yet and wouldn't
for several more days. Which would, in fact, explain a great deal...if
it weren't rather improbable that he would do so.

>     This is part of what I was talking about when I said just assume that
> when someone asks you a question, it's 'cause they're trying to help you,
> but don't have enough info to do so.

I never had any objection to questions like what build process I used.
I did find it troublesome when the questions had no obvious bearing on
what I'd asked, which occurred in another thread; I asked something
related to doing X, and instead of a straight answer got asked
questions that appeared more geared toward determining why I was doing
X and what else I was doing. That, at best, implies that they are
exceeding the bounds of my inquiry and presuming to decide whether I
should even be trying to do what I'm asking about, which I consider to
be rude -- I'll decide that, and if I had any doubts there I'd ask the
broader questions myself. Please just tell me about the area I
specifically asked about. At worst, it indicates that someone is
attempting to pry into the details of what I'm building and what for
(details, I might add, that were freely divulged in yet another thread
anyway).

Bent C Dalager wrote:
[Implied insult]

Nonresponsive. Move to strike.

Objection! Argumentative!

OK, maybe I've been watching too many law dramas. Still, haven't you
got anything better to do than to reiterate your insinuation that since
someone disagreed with me, therefore I *must* have been doing something
wrong?

If you want to prove me wrong, you need a little something called
"evidence". Simply putting on airs and telling me you think I'm wrong
just doesn't cut it. These days, you need a whole raft of forensics or
no jury in the world will convict.

Oops -- did it again. I really must increase my Star Trek dosage...

Twisted wrote:
> Mark Thornton wrote:
> > Twisted wrote:
> > > Actually, there are several other reasons. Notable among them is that
> > > nobody has yet mentioned anything remotely resembling a URL for it, and
> > > it should be fairly obvious that a google search with the query "ant"
> > > is unlikely to produce anything relevant here.
> >
> > Actually that simple query returns the required item as the very first
> > entry!
>
> That is illogical. The top hit for "ant" should be entomological in
> nature, since the most widespread mainstream use of the word "ant"
> refers to insects.

Haha excellent!

"Use Ant"
"Surely I wont be able to find it in google, searching for Ant wont
help"
"But it does... see, top link"
"....Well.....it shouldnt"

You should do stand-up, either that, or go and work for google, clearly
they have much to learn from you.

wesley.hall@gmail.com wrote:
> > nobody has yet mentioned anything remotely resembling a URL for it, and
> > it should be fairly obvious that a google search with the query "ant"
> > is unlikely to produce anything relevant here.
>
> Clearly you didn't even try.

Of course I didn't. A three letter query with a different, mainstream
dictionary meaning is far too likely to fail to be worth considering.

> Yes, it integrates easily with eclipse and any other serious IDE. It is
> a tool for scripting your build process so, while there is a slight
> overhead in writing the script (and it shouldnt be more than an hour or
> two, infact, probably far less time than you have already spent arguing
> the toss on this newgroup), once the script is written it will
> significantly improve your build and testing cycle as you can use it to
> automate your build, run your tests, generate your documentation,
> create a Java webstart archive for your software, deploy it to an app
> server (although this seems not to be required for your software) etc
> etc.

There are a number of notes regarding the above:
1. An hour or two? I'll need some proof it can easily do something
amazing you can't easily do with Eclipse on its own before that looks
like a worthwhile investment of time.
2. Webstart? This is a standalone app, rather than an applet, servlet,
or some kind of specialized client/server thing. Are you sure this
recommendation isn't based on a misapprehension of the nature of what
I'm doing? It's quite possible that your suggestion is well suited for
developing some kind of web app and rather less so in the case of a
standalone one...
3. False dichotomy. You presuppose I have a choice to *either* use this
tool *or* argue here. In fact, the choice is to argue here, or to use
the tool *and* argue here. My choice not to argue here vanished the
moment the first insult was slung. Now it is necessary to defend myself
and my choices in front of the same audience you're trying to convince
of my guilt/stupidity/whatever it is that you think.

> You will also be able to set up an use a continous integration
> server that will periodically check out your code (assuming you are
> running a version control system like CVS and subversion... and if not,
> you should be)

For a one-person project? You're joking. It would take me weeks to
learn to use such a complex tool, and then I have to operate some kind
of a server, then some kind of equally unfamiliar client ... that even
has *security* implications, since I have to make sure that the server
isn't visible to the outside world if I start running a server of some
sort.

And I thought some other people here were suggesting swatting flies
with bazookas. This is closer to disinfecting a dirty toilet with a
thermonuclear bomb.

> and run the build and tests, emailing you if there are
> any failures so you find out about integration errors quickly an
> efficiently.

What the devil do you think is going on here -- a complex multiperson
operation with three or four large racks of servers, a LAN, and Christ
alone knows what else? It's a guy with a couple computers working
largely on his own. I certainly don't need my own computer emailing me
when I can just have it pop up a tray notification or whatever. :) And
if you think I'm going to run any kind of remote administration tool
you're dreaming. Not without most of that stuff I don't have -- LAN,
hardware firewall, 24/7 technical staff, racks of servers and backup
tape machines recording night and day, and the substantial lotto
winnings that would be required to finance all of that stuff.

> I can assure you that if you take on contract work, or work on any
> serious established product, you WILL come across this tool eventually.
> You seem to be underestimating how ubiquitous it actually is.

Another case of "I'll cross that bridge when I come to it".

> To be honest, given the arrogant tone of your first two reply sections,
> and your requirement that others do all the legwork for you (down to
> actually doing the google search!)

What? In the very first post to the thread, I mentioned having googled
something myself. Later, I mentioned having googled some more. Nowhere
did I ask anyone to do any "legwork"; at most, to divulge things they
clearly already knew and therefore could not have to go find.

You must be replying to the wrong person here. There isn't any other
explanation for the astonishing stuff suggested by the paragraph I just
quoted.

> I am not even sure why I am even bothering to reply. In any case, I am done with
> this thread

Oh goody.

> you will either take the good advice provided here and move forward, or
> continue in your (false) belief that you are the smartest and most experience
> Java developer around.

Increasingly, it looks like faulty logic is surprisingly common in this
group. I'm surprised you can program anything with flow control more
complex than "hello, world" if you believe the false dichotomy above.

How about I take option number three, instead, in which I may take or
leave some or all of the advice provided here while continuing to not
believe I'm anything of the sort?

Patricia Shanahan wrote:
> java ant -> http://ant.apache.org/

Hrm.

> java load icon ->
> http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/components/icon.html

It always was a matter of luck whether I hit on a query that produced
this first, or one that produced the other method.

In article <1164280351.126417.237050@j72g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
Twisted <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>Of course I didn't. A three letter query with a different, mainstream
>dictionary meaning is far too likely to fail to be worth considering.

The mindset "it's not going to work so I won't even try" is a 100%
guaranteed way to failure. The mindset "I don't think it will work,
but let's give it a spin anyway and see" may, of course, also lead to
failure but the probability is at least less than 100% and many would
see that as a plus.

>2. Webstart? This is a standalone app, rather than an applet, servlet,
>or some kind of specialized client/server thing. Are you sure this
>recommendation isn't based on a misapprehension of the nature of what
>I'm doing? It's quite possible that your suggestion is well suited for
>developing some kind of web app and rather less so in the case of a
>standalone one...

Java Webstart is a framework for distribution and installation of
general Java applications. It has nothing to do with applets. Whether
or not it is restricted to web apps depends entirely what you mean by
the term "web app".

If you wrote, say, a single-player Civilization clone in Java, then
Java Webstart would be a viable way of distributing that application.

>3. False dichotomy. You presuppose I have a choice to *either* use this
>tool *or* argue here. In fact, the choice is to argue here, or to use
>the tool *and* argue here. My choice not to argue here vanished the
>moment the first insult was slung. Now it is necessary to defend myself
>and my choices in front of the same audience you're trying to convince
>of my guilt/stupidity/whatever it is that you think.

A great many people consider that a person will tend to have an
independent choice as to whether to enter into a flame fest or keep a
debate to a more technical level. While you seem to differ, I suggest
that you, also, might have been able to find within yourself the
strength to ignore any perceived insults that may have been present in
previous posts on this thread and continue in a more civil tone.

>> You will also be able to set up an use a continous integration
>> server that will periodically check out your code (assuming you are
>> running a version control system like CVS and subversion... and if not,
>> you should be)
>
>For a one-person project? You're joking. It would take me weeks to
>learn to use such a complex tool, and then I have to operate some kind
>of a server, then some kind of equally unfamiliar client ... that even
>has *security* implications, since I have to make sure that the server
>isn't visible to the outside world if I start running a server of some
>sort.

It typically has no more security implications than what you already
have on your development equipment. Presumably, your source code
resides in some directory structure on a local hard disk. If your
computer is ever connected to the Internet, then your code is in
jeopardy. Running a local Subversion (say) server on that machine
isn't going to do much to change that.

>And I thought some other people here were suggesting swatting flies
>with bazookas. This is closer to disinfecting a dirty toilet with a
>thermonuclear bomb.

Running a version control system is just common sense for any
semi-serious programming project, icons or no icons. The benefits
easily outweight the few hours it takes to download, install and learn
how to use it.

Periodic automatic build cycles isn't all that critical on a
single-programmer project though.

Cheers
	Bent D
-- 
Bent Dalager - bcd@pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
                                    powered by emacs

Ok, you win... one last salvo...


> > I am not even sure why I am even bothering to reply. In any case, I am done with
> > this thread
>
> Oh goody.

Seems I have disappointed you, but your posts are just too tempting to
resist. If you are a troll, you are by far the best that I have ever
seen.


> > you will either take the good advice provided here and move forward, or
> > continue in your (false) belief that you are the smartest and most experience
> > Java developer around.
>
> Increasingly, it looks like faulty logic is surprisingly common in this
> group. I'm surprised you can program anything with flow control more
> complex than "hello, world" if you believe the false dichotomy above.

Fortunatly, I have maded to pick a sweet contract with 'Hello World
Software Ltd', which renders this a non-issue.

In article <1164279356.972817.248760@j44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
Twisted <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>OK, maybe I've been watching too many law dramas. Still, haven't you
>got anything better to do than to reiterate your insinuation that since
>someone disagreed with me, therefore I *must* have been doing something
>wrong?

I'm not sure how I can reiterate something the first time I alledgedly
do it. Or do you also alledge that I did it previously? If so, where
and when?

Anyway, it is entirely certain that you have done _something_ wrong.
I haven't actually touched upon whether it has anything to do with the
current debate. The question of more interest is whether or not you
are capable of admitting that you do make mistakes on occassion, and
this was the gist of my previous post.

>If you want to prove me wrong, (...)

Do I have any motivation to want to try and do that?

Cheers
	Bent D
-- 
Bent Dalager - bcd@pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
                                    powered by emacs

For some strange reason, some of the content has gone missing from my
other reply. Perhaps a parsing bug in google groups. I will reiterate.

> Webstart? This is a standalone app, rather than an applet, servlet,
> or some kind of specialized client/server thing. Are you sure this
> recommendation isn't based on a misapprehension of the nature of what
> I'm doing?

No misapprehension at all. Please consider reading the first paragraph
on...

http://java.sun.com/products/javawebstart/

That should clear things up.

> > You will also be able to set up an use a continous integration
> > server that will periodically check out your code (assuming you are
> > running a version control system like CVS and subversion... and if not,
> > you should be)
>
> For a one-person project? You're joking. It would take me weeks to
> learn to use such a complex tool, and then I have to operate some kind
> of a server, then some kind of equally unfamiliar client ... that even
> has *security* implications, since I have to make sure that the server
> isn't visible to the outside world if I start running a server of some
> sort.

Yes, even for a one person project. You can run version control locally
and it will give you the ability to tag version, branch (to try out
experimental things without poluting your working version), and
rollback if needed. Each change will be tracked. Very worthwhile for
any project, 1 person or 100'000 people.

You dont even need a server if it is just you, just install locally,
instructions for this are everywhere.


> What the devil do you think is going on here -- a complex multiperson
> operation with three or four large racks of servers, a LAN, and Christ
> alone knows what else? It's a guy with a couple computers working
> largely on his own. I certainly don't need my own computer emailing me
> when I can just have it pop up a tray notification or whatever. :) And
> if you think I'm going to run any kind of remote administration tool
> you're dreaming. Not without most of that stuff I don't have -- LAN,
> hardware firewall, 24/7 technical staff, racks of servers and backup
> tape machines recording night and day, and the substantial lotto
> winnings that would be required to finance all of that stuff.

I accept that CI might be overkill for your project. The point still
stands though. Ant will give you flexibility far beyond what eclipse
gives. You wont accept this, because your refuse to even look at the
project page unless someone gives you a detailed demonstration. It is
no problem to me. You will either discover it eventually or wander into
some other field.

> > I can assure you that if you take on contract work, or work on any
> > serious established product, you WILL come across this tool eventually.
> > You seem to be underestimating how ubiquitous it actually is.
>
> Another case of "I'll cross that bridge when I come to it".

The bridge will almost certainly come with you get asked if you have
ever used ant before in an interview, at which point, it is too late to
come up with a plan to cross.

The rest of my reply was posted successfully last time.

Bent C Dalager wrote:
....
> Java Webstart is a framework for distribution and installation of
> general Java applications.

E.G. <http://www.physci.org/pc/jtest.jnlp>

>..It has nothing to do with applets.

E.G. <http://www.physci.org/pc/jtest-applet.jnlp>

Andrew T.

wesley.hall@gmail.com wrote:
> You should do stand-up, either that, or go and work for google, clearly
> they have much to learn from you.

If, as you claim, the top hit for "ant" isn't the dictionary definition
or even remotely related but is instead for some obscure software that
only a minuscule fraction as many people have even heard of, then
Google clearly does have much to learn -- from *somebody*, anyway.

On Thu, 23 Nov 2006 11:12:31 -0000, Twisted <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote=
:

> wesley.hall@gmail.com wrote:
>> > nobody has yet mentioned anything remotely resembling a URL for it,=
  =

>> and
>> > it should be fairly obvious that a google search with the query "an=
t"
>> > is unlikely to produce anything relevant here.
>>
>> Clearly you didn't even try.
>
> Of course I didn't. A three letter query with a different, mainstream
> dictionary meaning is far too likely to fail to be worth considering.

The way Google ranks pages is mostly dependent on how many sites link to=
 a  =

particular page.  In the world of insect websites, there is probably not=
 a  =

single definitive page for the word "ant".  In Java development, there i=
s  =

(the Apache Ant project home page).  Also, the number of computing  =

websites is disproportionate in comparison to the number of non-technica=
l  =

websites simply because the people who are interested in computing are  =

much more likely to have the technical skills/knowledge/inclination  =

required to create the web pages (and therefore to create the links to  =

other computing sites).

Regardless, Patricia's advice to search for "java ant" should have been =
 =

obvious.

>> Yes, it integrates easily with eclipse and any other serious IDE. It =
is
>> a tool for scripting your build process so, while there is a slight
>> overhead in writing the script (and it shouldnt be more than an hour =
or
>> two, infact, probably far less time than you have already spent argui=
ng
>> the toss on this newgroup), once the script is written it will
>> significantly improve your build and testing cycle as you can use it =
to
>> automate your build, run your tests, generate your documentation,
>> create a Java webstart archive for your software, deploy it to an app=

>> server (although this seems not to be required for your software) etc=

>> etc.
>
> There are a number of notes regarding the above:
> 1. An hour or two? I'll need some proof it can easily do something
> amazing you can't easily do with Eclipse on its own before that looks
> like a worthwhile investment of time.

This should do the job.  Save the following as build.xml in the root of =
 =

your project.  Edit the properties at the top to match the paths in your=
  =

project, and then run "ant" or "ant all" from the command line (from the=
  =

root directory of your project).  I don't remember how you set Eclipse u=
p  =

to use this, but it's trivial in IDEA and NetBeans, so I can't imagine  =

that it's very difficult.  If you need to extend this script, for exampl=
e  =

to add a manifest, I'm sure you can work out how from the examples in th=
e  =

manual (http://ant.apache.org/manual/index.html).

=3D=3D=3D=3D START HERE =3D=3D=3D=3D
<project name=3D"twisted" default=3D"jar" basedir=3D".">
   <description>Example build.xml for Twisted</description>

   <property name=3D"src.dir" location=3D"./src"/>
   <property name=3D"resources.dir" location=3D"./resources" />
   <property name=3D"build.dir" location=3D"./build"/>
   <property name=3D"classes.dir" location=3D"${build.dir}/classes" />
   <property name=3D"target.jar" location=3D"${build.dir}/twisted.jar" /=
>

   <!-- Builds everything from scratch. -->
   <target name=3D"all" depends=3D"clean, jar" description=3D"Builds eve=
rything  =

 from scratch."/>

   <!-- Deletes all directories and files created by the build process. =
-->
   <target name=3D"clean" description=3D"Remove all files created by the=
 build  =

process." >
     <delete dir=3D"${build.dir}" />
   </target>

   <!-- Build all Java code. -->
   <target name=3D"compile" description=3D"Compile the Java source files=
.." >
     <mkdir dir=3D"${classes.dir}" />
     <javac destdir=3D"${classes.dir}"
            debug=3D"on"
            deprecation=3D"on"
            source=3D"1.5"
            target=3D"1.5"
            srcdir=3D"${src.dir}">
       <include name=3D"**/*.java" />
       <compilerarg line=3D"-Xlint:unchecked" />
     </javac>
   </target>

   <!-- Build application JAR file. -->
   <target name=3D"jar" depends=3D"compile" description=3D"Create the ap=
plication  =

JAR file.">
     <jar jarfile=3D"${target.jar}">
       <fileset dir=3D"${classes.dir}" >
         <include name=3D"**/*.class" />
       </fileset>
       <fileset dir=3D"${resources.dir}" includes=3D"*" />
     </jar>
   </target>

</project>
=3D=3D=3D=3D END HERE =3D=3D=3D=3D

>> You will also be able to set up an use a continous integration
>> server that will periodically check out your code (assuming you are
>> running a version control system like CVS and subversion... and if no=
t,
>> you should be)
>
> For a one-person project? You're joking. It would take me weeks to
> learn to use such a complex tool, and then I have to operate some kind=

> of a server, then some kind of equally unfamiliar client ... that even=

> has *security* implications, since I have to make sure that the server=

> isn't visible to the outside world if I start running a server of some=

> sort.

Version control (damage control) is always a good idea - I'd even argue =
 =

that it is the most important development tool, ahead of IDEs and build =
 =

tools.  You can get plugins for Eclipse to integrate this stuff (one for=
  =

Subversion is called Subclipse).  But this is getting even more off-topi=
c  =

than we already were.  I agree that the continuous integration stuff is =
 =

over-kill for a one person project.

Dan.

-- =

Daniel Dyer
http://www.dandyer.co.uk

Bent C Dalager wrote:
> In article <1164280351.126417.237050@j72g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> Twisted <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >Of course I didn't. A three letter query with a different, mainstream
> >dictionary meaning is far too likely to fail to be worth considering.
>
> The mindset "it's not going to work so I won't even try" is a 100%
> guaranteed way to failure.

The mindset "There are two ways to do this. A is quicker when it works
but looks extremely doubtful in this particular case. B is slower, but
pretty much guaranteed to work. So I'll pick B" is quite the opposite.

A is googling something that someone mentioned, but didn't go into much
detail about.
B is asking them about it.

The circumstances where A is sufficiently doubtful to prefer B include
pretty much any case where a common word is used in an uncommon way, or
an acronym is used that's less than five (perhaps six) letters, or
there isn't a proper name or acronym involved at all and what keywords
there are all have many synonyms or are collectively not going to form
a narrow enough query. And of course there are some cases that you just
know won't work regardless -- for instance, "that girl I was with last
night" or anything else that's relative to the speaker, time, and
place, and otherwise highly generic.

> Java Webstart is a framework for distribution and installation of
> general Java applications. It has nothing to do with applets. Whether
> or not it is restricted to web apps depends entirely what you mean by
> the term "web app".
>
> If you wrote, say, a single-player Civilization clone in Java, then
> Java Webstart would be a viable way of distributing that application.

What is it then -- network install? (Run installer. Pick features. It
then downloads only what you need, as opposed to you downloading 50MB
of self-extracter and only installing 10MB worth of the contents.)

[Blither blather "perceived insult" blah]

The repeated insinuation that I'm hallucinating (or whatever) is not
going to get any less false for your repeating it enough times, you
know.

> It typically has no more security implications than what you already
> have on your development equipment. Presumably, your source code
> resides in some directory structure on a local hard disk. If your
> computer is ever connected to the Internet, then your code is in
> jeopardy. Running a local Subversion (say) server on that machine
> isn't going to do much to change that.

That's a joke, right?

If I'm running a server that gives direct access to the code, then it's
damn easy for someone to mess with it. Otherwise, they have to find
something else I'm running that functions as a server and compromise
it, or trick me into installing a back door Trojan, or something
similar. It's the difference between keeping jewelry in a back room
safe (which might of course be found and cracked) and in a front window
display case (much more visible and accessible).

> Running a version control system is just common sense for any
> semi-serious programming project, icons or no icons. The benefits
> easily outweight the few hours it takes to download, install and learn
> how to use it.

It looks like maybe you define "semi-serious" as "multi-programmer", or
perhaps as "aspiring to some sort of commercial use or to working
professionally in the field" (yeah, right, when there's a glut of
experts already, and lots of the others have industry contacts and
industry experience that I lack).

As for "few hours", that sounds wildly optimistic to me, considering
the evident complexity. There's the question of how it might interact
with my existing development tools, too, of course (including *whether*
it would, or I'd have to transport data manually between the two,
though I think I saw something somewhere about eclipse being
configurable as a client for version control servers).

> If I'm running a server that gives direct access to the code, then it's
> damn easy for someone to mess with it. Otherwise, they have to find
> something else I'm running that functions as a server and compromise
> it, or trick me into installing a back door Trojan, or something
> similar. It's the difference between keeping jewelry in a back room
> safe (which might of course be found and cracked) and in a front window
> display case (much more visible and accessible).

Running the server portion of a version control system locally just
means you have a bunch of files that maintain all changes to your
software. It is no less secure than your current approach, you just
have a few more files in a specific format.

This is exactly what I mean when I say, "Stop assuming you are the
smartest person around". Why assume that everyone who runs their
software this way is running insecurely and hasn't even realized.

The fact that you 'tell' people about the insecurity rather than post,
"Ok, that is interesting, but wouldn't running a server leave me
susceptable to remote attacks?", is why people are taking you for and
treating you like a moron.

> yeah, right, when there's a glut of
> experts already, and lots of the others have industry contacts and
> industry experience that I lack

Lack of industry experience is not the reason you are very unlikely to
make it as a professional developer.

Bent C Dalager wrote:
> I'm not sure how I can reiterate something the first time I alledgedly
> do it. Or do you also alledge that I did it previously? If so, where
> and when?

You can reiterate something that is being said by a group or collective
of some kind, even while you personally didn't actually say it before.
In this case, it seems to be the group mantra.

Anyway, I don't usually bother to track the individual names of
harassers; they're all just "some guy on usenet who thinks he's a
clever critic" unless one of them becomes somehow memorably different
from the others (usually by being memorably worse).

> Anyway, it is entirely certain that you have done _something_ wrong.

You continue to assert this, without bothering to furnish anything
resembling proof. That could be construed as libel, and I could pursue
legal action.

Either prove it or shut up.

> >If you want to prove me wrong, (...)
>
> Do I have any motivation to want to try and do that?

You seem to have a very strong desire to make people think that I was
wrong. (And I'm actually not clear what specific thing you are trying
to prove me wrong *about*, curiously enough.) That would seem to be the
obvious method. Then there is, of course, the lazy method, which is
just to repeat it as loudly and as often as possible and hope that
people are gullible enough, by and large, to consider volume and
vehemence acceptable substitutes for evidence and reason...

Twisted skrev:
> wesley.hall@gmail.com wrote:
>> You should do stand-up, either that, or go and work for google, clearly
>> they have much to learn from you.
> 
> If, as you claim, the top hit for "ant" isn't the dictionary definition
> or even remotely related but is instead for some obscure software that
> only a minuscule fraction as many people have even heard of, then
> Google clearly does have much to learn -- from *somebody*, anyway.
> 
If you want a definition, search for "define:ant".Google returns result 
based on relevance, mostly. If you want a dictionary, use a dictionary.

wesley.hall@gmail.com wrote:
> For some strange reason, some of the content has gone missing from my
> other reply. Perhaps a parsing bug in google groups. I will reiterate.
>
> > Webstart? This is a standalone app, rather than an applet, servlet,
> > or some kind of specialized client/server thing. Are you sure this
> > recommendation isn't based on a misapprehension of the nature of what
> > I'm doing?
>
> No misapprehension at all. Please consider reading the first paragraph
> on...
>
> http://java.sun.com/products/javawebstart/

Please tell me why you think it should ever even occur to me to visit
this URL when not developing a weblication of any kind? Because unless
you can think up a good reason, what's actually at that URL is moot --
some of the people to whom it (supposedly) applies will not look there
for it anyway.

> Yes, even for a one person project. You can run version control locally
> and it will give you the ability to tag version, branch (to try out
> experimental things without poluting your working version), and
> rollback if needed. Each change will be tracked. Very worthwhile for
> any project, 1 person or 100'000 people.

Any large enough project I assume you mean. It sounds like it adds
complexity to pretty much every stage of the cycle, though, so not any
sufficiently small project. And the dividing point is shifted towards
larger projects for version control novices, for whom there's
additional overhead involved.

> I accept that CI might be overkill for your project. The point still
> stands though. Ant will give you flexibility far beyond what eclipse
> gives. You wont accept this, because your refuse to even look at the
> project page unless someone gives you a detailed demonstration. It is
> no problem to me. You will either discover it eventually or wander into
> some other field.

I have not refused to do anything; I don't know where people are
getting this from. Please quote anywhere where I have claimed that I
absolutely will not do X, other than a few cases of X being
obviously-dumb things as in "I will not run a wide-open server or
remote administration tool without a firewall". I have also not "not
accepted" anything, in the sense you seem to mean of "rejecting out of
hand" as opposed to "not just taking some anonymous usenetter's word
for things".

> The bridge will almost certainly come with you get asked if you have
> ever used ant before in an interview, at which point, it is too late to
> come up with a plan to cross.

What interview?

On 23.11.2006 14:03 Twisted wrote:
>> http://java.sun.com/products/javawebstart/
> 
> Please tell me why you think it should ever even occur to me to visit
> this URL when not developing a weblication of any kind? 

Most probably because Java WebStart has _absolutely_ *nothing* to do 
with Web applications?

Yet again you judge the software features by its name (do you use Word 
to write single-worded documents?)

> > No misapprehension at all. Please consider reading the first paragraph
> > on...
> >
> > http://java.sun.com/products/javawebstart/
>
> Please tell me why you think it should ever even occur to me to visit
> this URL when not developing a weblication of any kind?

Perhaps you might have considered having a brief look before suggesting
that it was completely irrelevant to your project. You said this with
such conviction, yet you didn't even have a clue what it was. Again,
this reflects on your intellect.

> > The bridge will almost certainly come with you get asked if you have
> > ever used ant before in an interview, at which point, it is too late to
> > come up with a plan to cross.
> 
> What interview?

I couldn't have said it better myself!

Andrew Thompson wrote:
> E.G. <http://www.physci.org/pc/jtest.jnlp>

Sorry, I don't have any software on my system for interpreting .jnlp
files, whatever those are. (And I *do* have software for the common and
even many of the more obscure formats for images, archives, and the
like, just to put that into some sort of perspective...)

Twisted wrote:
> wesley.hall@gmail.com wrote:
....
>> You will also be able to set up an use a continous integration
>> server that will periodically check out your code (assuming you are
>> running a version control system like CVS and subversion... and if not,
>> you should be)
> 
> For a one-person project? You're joking. It would take me weeks to
> learn to use such a complex tool, and then I have to operate some kind
> of a server, then some kind of equally unfamiliar client ... that even
> has *security* implications, since I have to make sure that the server
> isn't visible to the outside world if I start running a server of some
> sort.
....

My current project is a one-person project, part of my academic
research. I keep a subversion repository for it on a university server,
which provides both a revision history and an off-site backup. I use an
ssh tunnel so that the files in transfer to/from the server are encrypted.

If I didn't want an off-site backup, I would do revision control locally.

For one thing, it gives one great freedom to experiment. If I want to
try something out, I make sure I'm fully checked in, and do it. If it
doesn't work out, I just revert the previous version.

I realize that this may not be a good time to experiment with revision
control for you, but do not eliminate the idea just because you are
working on a one-person project. I don't think it would take you weeks
to learn.

Patricia

Twisted wrote:
> Andrew Thompson wrote:
> > E.G. <http://www.physci.org/pc/jtest.jnlp>
>
> Sorry, I don't have any software on my system for interpreting .jnlp
> files

Ahhh, I think I am beginning to see the problem...

On 23.11.2006 14:23 Patricia Shanahan wrote:
  > For one thing, it gives one great freedom to experiment. If I want to
> try something out, I make sure I'm fully checked in, and do it. If it
> doesn't work out, I just revert the previous version.
> 
> I realize that this may not be a good time to experiment with revision
> control for you, but do not eliminate the idea just because you are
> working on a one-person project. I don't think it would take you weeks
> to learn.

I couldn't agree more!

It took me about 10 minutes to figure out how to use a local CVS 
repository...

Thomas

Daniel Dyer wrote:
[snip some opinions on what "should have been obvious" and the like]
> > There are a number of notes regarding the above:
> > 1. An hour or two? I'll need some proof it can easily do something
> > amazing you can't easily do with Eclipse on its own before that looks
> > like a worthwhile investment of time.
>
> This should do the job.  Save the following as build.xml in the root of
> your project.  Edit the properties at the top to match the paths in your
> project, and then run "ant" or "ant all" from the command line (from the
> root directory of your project).  I don't remember how you set Eclipse up
> to use this, but it's trivial in IDEA and NetBeans, so I can't imagine
> that it's very difficult.  If you need to extend this script, for example
> to add a manifest, I'm sure you can work out how from the examples in the
> manual (http://ant.apache.org/manual/index.html).

Given that Eclipse already rebuilds things automatically when they have
changed, what advantage does this provide? (That's an honest question,
not a rejection, disparagement, or anything else you may be tempted to
misinterpret it as, by the way.)

wesley.hall@gmail.com wrote:
> Running the server portion of a version control system locally just
> means you have a bunch of files that maintain all changes to your
> software. It is no less secure than your current approach, you just
> have a few more files in a specific format.

You seem to be forgetting the cardinal rule of system administration:
because way, way too many dolts ship server software installation
packages whose default install configuration is "wide open to the
Internet, with a widely known default password" it is important to take
extra precautions when installing any kind of server software to
configure it correctly and block anything via your firewall that you
aren't sure about. (If you find you need it later you unblock it then.
And change that default password!)

Even if the "default password" hole doesn't get you, an exploit of some
kind may well do so (recall the Slammer worm -- everyone with an
unfirewalled database got hit, and I do mean "everyone", within ten
minutes of the thing being released!) so firewalling away any server
functionality that doesn't need wide-area access is a crucial (and
oft-neglected) security precaution.

You on the other hand seem to be treating the installation of a version
control server as no more an issue in regard to security than
installing a new word processor or spreadsheet.

> This is exactly what I mean when I say, "Stop assuming you are the
> smartest person around". Why assume that everyone who runs their
> software this way is running insecurely and hasn't even realized.

I'm not. You're assuming I'm assuming that. When all I actually said
was that installing a server introduces new security considerations
that are absent when installing other software. If you dispute THAT
statement, I pray that you aren't a system administrator anywhere that
keeps anything working that I happen to use or otherwise have reason to
care about.

And to pre-empt your predictable response to what I said above -- I at
no time claimed that any particular version control product ships "wide
open with a default password", only that there is an awful lot of
server software (and hardware!) that does, and consequently a savvy
sysadmin has to treat *all* servers as if they *might* arrive in such a
state and make sure to immediately configure them (and their firewall)
properly. It adds to the overhead -- especially if you get it wrong and
get exploited.

> The fact that you 'tell' people about the insecurity rather than post,
> "Ok, that is interesting, but wouldn't running a server leave me
> susceptable to remote attacks?", is why people are taking you for and
> treating you like a moron.

I *did* say the equivalent of "Ok, that is interesting, but wouldn't
running a server leave me susceptible to remote attacks?". You are
putting words in my mouth when you suggest anything different. The
exact thing I said was closer to "...and installing server software
also adds *security* considerations..." -- not anything about it
invariably reducing your security.

If you can't even attack the things I genuinely said and feel the need
to make it up as you go along and attack the resulting straw men
instead, then we're done here and you can shut up now.

> Lack of industry experience is not the reason you are very unlikely to
> make it as a professional developer.

No, the glut is, combined with the likelihood that the would-be bosses
are nearly all assholes like you. It's been my observation that shit
floats to the top, and that in actual real-world management situations
it's usually some know-it-all prick with an attitude problem like you
who ends up telling the actual technical staff how to do their jobs,
and then sending heads rolling when they do exactly as instructed
against their own best judgment and then everything crashes. Currently,
this seems to have happened at infoworld.com, one of whose hosted blogs
has been on the blink for over 12 hours straight now, no doubt due to a
stroke of massive incompetence. I've never seen incompetence of that
magnitude that wasn't wearing a suit and a tie and drawing an
upper-five-figure salary, ever in my (considerable) life. No doubt a
manager there did something dumb, like tell the techs how to do their
jobs until the system was riddled with bugs and required 24/7
nursemaiding to keep running, and then fire all but one of them to save
money and let the remaining one go on vacation or call in sick with
no-one to cover for him...exit one formerly-functioning server and
Christ alone knows how many prospective customers. The odd thing is
that these guys have doddered along for decades without all wiping
themselves out in a giant stock market crash. I mean, there should have
been at least ONE more Great Depression with bozos like those running
the show, you'd think. Maybe enough technicians stick to their guns and
actually do their jobs properly despite their management that
everything just keeps on muddling along. Still, every guy like you to
come along with an attitude like yours only matched by a comparably
poor grasp of the basic principles of logic makes the likelihood of a
civilization-destroying disaster of comparable magnitude happening
tomorrow notch up just a tad. And there are an awful lot of you, and it
all adds up...

On Thu, 23 Nov 2006 13:41:35 -0000, Twisted <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Given that Eclipse already rebuilds things automatically when they have
> changed, what advantage does this provide? (That's an honest question,
> not a rejection, disparagement, or anything else you may be tempted to
> misinterpret it as, by the way.)

Well, I was under the impression that you hadn't been able to get Eclipse  
to build the JAR file for you as part of an atomic, automated build.  If  
you can get Eclipse to do this for you, then maybe you don't need Ant at  
this stage.  The suggestion was also based on the assumption that building  
a JAR file was the "right" solution for your problem.  This is not  
necessarily the case, but it is the solution I would prefer in your  
position.

The main reason that I like to use Ant for the build rather than the IDE's  
built-in mechanism is because it stops you from being tied to the IDE.   
This has two advantages, which like many of the suggestions you have  
received on this thread may not be so important for a one-person team.   
The first advantage is that different people working on your project can  
use different IDEs or editors but still have a single "official" way of  
building the code (if you try to configure multiple tools to do the build,  
you may introduce subtle differences).

The second advantage is that you can build from the command line without  
requiring any graphical tools.  This is advantageous for integrating with  
other processes, such as continuous integration systems.  It is also  
better if you are planning to distribute your application in source form,  
since it will be easier for other people to build the software.  They  
won't have to install Eclipse or work out all the dependencies for  
themselves.  Of course, you don't have to use Ant for this, you could just  
write a shell script or batch file. The advantage of Ant is that it will  
run on any system that has a JVM and that it has built-in support for the  
most common things you would want the build process to do.

Dan.

-- 
Daniel Dyer
http://www.dandyer.co.uk

Twisted wrote:
> wesley.hall@gmail.com wrote:
> > Running the server portion of a version control system locally just
> > means you have a bunch of files that maintain all changes to your
> > software. It is no less secure than your current approach, you just
> > have a few more files in a specific format.
>
> You seem to be forgetting the cardinal rule of system administration:
> because way, way too many dolts ship server software installation
> packages whose default install configuration is "wide open to the
> Internet, with a widely known default password"

Please read these words and read them as carefully as you can, trying
very very hard to understand....

Installing a local version control system does not run any kind of
server process, of any kind, anywhere. There are no default passwords,
no back doors, no additional security risk. It is just a bunch of
files, on your disk, that keep track of your incremental software
changes. I simply cannot make it any clearer than that, if you still do
not understand then there is no hope.

If you eventually decide to use a remote server setup, then subversion
is accessible via an extension to the HTTP protocol called DAV. Your
subversion server is generally an apache server, which is widely used
and well maintained. In this configuration, you would have security
considerations, but nowhere near the magnitute you are suggesting. I
run a linux server with my subversion server, it is not difficult to
install, configure or secure, all processes are well documented. There
is a theorectical risk of compromise with any remotely accessible
server, but an apache compromise would be huge huge news and a patch
would be available in minutes (it would, after all, affect the majority
of all webservers). Not running these standard tools due to attack
paranoia is akin to not leaving your house for fear of being hit by a
bus.

Of course, you didn't know that subversion generally uses apache as
it's server, but you probably didn't even bother to try to find out for
yourself either.

The rest of your post is pure gold. I am an asshole, a
counter-productive manager, and the potential destroyer of civilization
as we know it. At least I have some references for my resume now.

Patricia Shanahan wrote:
> My current project is a one-person project, part of my academic
> research. I keep a subversion repository for it on a university server,
> which provides both a revision history and an off-site backup. I use an
> ssh tunnel so that the files in transfer to/from the server are encrypted.

And you probably wouldn't if the following weren't true:
a) You were already familiar with this sort of thing, as a result of
larger projects;
b) All of this stuff, including the hosting, you were not paying extra
for;
c) You're familiar enough with setting up things like ssh tunnels and
security precautions to trust yourself to do this stuff without
screwing it up and letting every Tom, Dick, and Harry with a rootkit
and subscription to 2600 get in by mistake.

:)
I can't actually state anything about what you would or wouldn't do
with certainty, though; it's entirely possible that you happen to be
atypical in this area anyway.

> I realize that this may not be a good time to experiment with revision
> control for you, but do not eliminate the idea just because you are
> working on a one-person project. I don't think it would take you weeks
> to learn.

I never said I was "eliminating the idea", only questioning its being
anything but overkill and added work for little gain in the context of
this specific project. But then, that seems to be a recurring
misunderstanding around here, where my not jumping up all enthused and
immediately going and doing something is interpreted as a permanent
rejection of that thing for some reason, or at least my asking a
question is interpreted as a permanent rejection. (I would expect it
should be more indicative of some sort of (possibly guarded) interest;
outright rejection would probably not involve questions at all, other
than the rhetorical variety, and most likely would involve either
blanket unconditional flat refusals or just silence.)

Thomas Kellerer wrote:
> I couldn't agree more!
>
> It took me about 10 minutes to figure out how to use a local CVS
> repository...

I find that difficult to believe, unless the loophole is the obvious
and you already knew a great deal about how to use a *remote* CVS
repository, which is probably more complex.

10 minutes is the time to figure out how to get an unfamiliar media
player to import your playlist, shuffle, and loop, or to go from IE to
Firefox or something.
1 hour is the time to figure out something more complex, such as doing
some basic stuff with a spreadsheet with no or only sporadic prior
spreadsheet experience and no familiarity with the specific software
used, or get a "hello world" working in a new programming language
(actually that can be under 10 minutes if it's fairly simple to use --
BASIC, Smalltalk, some Lisps; generally longer for anything that needs
various tools installed and configured correctly, e.g. most C or C++
environments, with no prior experience with the tools or language --
most of the time spent getting the build to work right).

Then there's stuff like advanced spreadsheet or CAS functionality, or
3D modeling (hours to get started, and as much as one to learn new
software with proficiency with the general category). And then there's:
* Configuring and installing a server yourself (even intended for a
single user).
* Configuring and installing the client.
* Reading their manuals, at least for the most basic and common how-to
operations plus the installation and configuration related stuff.
* Hammering out the kinks, which complex client/server architecture
software usually has more than zero of before it gets going properly on
a particular equipment configuration.
* Actually setting up a specific project on the system, once the thing
is running.
* Hammering out any problems that didn't manifest until you tried to
actually use the system for anything, rather than just turn it on.
* Learning, and getting used to, the new procedure for getting your
data out and putting it back in once you've made your changes.

One thing people already proficient with a tool often forget when
estimating the difficulty for new users is the amount of time and
mental effort involved in that last bit -- *getting used to* a changed
workflow.

I flatly disbelieve your ten-minute figure, unless you found a magical
CVS growing on a tree somewhere that you just unzip in a clearly
explained place on your hard drive and then some IDE you already knew
how to use (say, Eclipse) starts transparently and automatically using
it as a backend without further ado.

The odd thing is, I'm not entirely convinced that such a magical CVS is
impossible. It just sounds improbable, given the low expectations one
has regarding the ease of use of unfamiliar or substantially changed
software these days.

P.S. it's me, but replying with a different address. It seems that one
of you did something to try to block me from being able to respond to
the crap some of you are writing and Google is now claiming I've
violated some kind of limit. Of course they helpfully provide me a link
labeled "if you feel this message is in error ..." which leads to a
bare-bones 404 page.

Obviously, it didn't work, since I am replying now to let whoever you
are know that a) you failed to shut me up, b) you succeeded in pissing
me off, and c) you are now being called on it, as you should really
have been expecting, using such underhanded tactics.

I do not find this amusing, and I certainly do not consider such
tactics to try to win an argument to be anything other than cheating in
the first degree. If I identify the specific person responsible, there
will be consequences. I can only assume they either a) made a spurious
complaint of some nonexistent misconduct on my part or b) actually
acted more directly and hacked Google or otherwise messed with my
ability to reply. The latter actually is fairly plausible because it's
happened before -- some guy put some weird shit in the headers of his
posts so that every attempt to follow up to the drivel he spouted in
comp.os.windows using Google Groups choked with a "no such group" error
despite the fact that all his hapless victim had done was read his
drivel, immediately think of 15,000 objections, click "reply", type in
about the top 15 of the objections, and hit "post", which obviously
should Just Work(tm), but for this particular bonehead's posts
invariably failed. Manually editing some of the headers of the reply
(not easy on google's interface) made it work. I've also encountered
posts the replies to which would fail silently, failing to appear even
after several whole hours without actually producing any error
messages, either. I don't doubt there's some stupid script-kiddie trick
to make a post that will cause a GG user to be locked out of his
account if he tries to reply. It looks like the other tricks are based
on making GG redirect your posting away from the group you were in, in
the one case to a bogus group and in the other to an actually-existing
one you probably don't read. It follows that such a trick can also be
used to redirect the posting to where it will be interpreted as spam
and generate complaints, or perhaps even to make it generate a large
number of copies that makes GG's computers think you're a spammer or
that rapidly exhaust some kind of limit meant to block bot postings
that a human shouldn't actually be able to reach in normal usage.

It doesn't actually matter *what* was done, only that if anyone ever
does anything like that to me again, then it will be the last time they
ever do anything to me, period. I *will* find out who the guilty party
is, especially if there is *ever* a repeat of this attack, and I *will*
find out other things about them once I find out their name. Trust me
on this.

Capiche?

Now, I expect that in the future, hitting "reply", typing stuff, and
hitting "post message" will never again behave in any manner that is
surprising, and most especially will never again reject a posting of
mine. My postings do not ever deserve any kind of automated rejection
and I will take each and every occurrence of such as a direct and
mortal insult -- it's tantamount to accusing me of being a spammer, and
moreover, in the most indirect and cowardly of manners rather than just
coming right out and saying it to my face. Whosoever does such a thing
to me is only one rung above an *actual* spammer on the evolutionary
ladder and I will make certain to remind them of this fact on every
occasion that seems warranted, particularly when there happens to be an
audience!

And of course it's worth noting that no message to an unmoderated
usenet group should be blocked from being posted anyway. EVER.
After-the-fact cancellation (by the author, or if it's outright spam)
is ALL that is permissible here.

So don't let me EVER catch ANY of you trying to forcibly muzzle rather
than debate your opponent EVER AGAIN. (That includes any cases I become
aware of in which your opponent is somebody other than me, by the way;
fair's fair.)

Short version: Don't you EVER do that again! NAUGHTY, naughty boy! You
know who you are!

Daniel Dyer wrote:
> Well, I was under the impression that you hadn't been able to get Eclipse
> to build the JAR file for you as part of an atomic, automated build.

Technically correct, but for lack of trying -- packaging for
distribution is not really even on the horizon here yet.

P.S. it's me. Some jerkwad, probably in this group, tried to forcibly
muzzle me when they ran out of (il)logical arguments to debate me with.
They succeeded only in muzzling "twisted" and earning a stern warning
that if they do the same thing to "nebulous" they will have a) still
not succeeded in shutting me up and b) made themselves strong
contenders for a near-future Darwin Award.

> The main reason that I like to use Ant for the build rather than the IDE's
> built-in mechanism is because it stops you from being tied to the IDE.
> This has two advantages, which like many of the suggestions you have
> received on this thread may not be so important for a one-person team.
> The first advantage is that different people working on your project can
> use different IDEs or editors but still have a single "official" way of
> building the code (if you try to configure multiple tools to do the build,
> you may introduce subtle differences).

Clearly that makes it important for multiperson projects, or as a
bridge during an IDE change for a single user, at minimum.

> The second advantage is that you can build from the command line without
> requiring any graphical tools.

Usually I only would need to build after changing something, which
would happen in the IDE. :)

> It is also better if you are planning to distribute your application in source form

Ant also emerges as distinctly useful when distribution time comes and
the project is open source, then...

On Thu, 23 Nov 2006 14:53:38 -0000, <nebulous99@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> P.S. it's me, but replying with a different address. It seems that one=

> of you did something to try to block me from being able to respond to
> the crap some of you are writing and Google is now claiming I've
> violated some kind of limit. Of course they helpfully provide me a lin=
k
> labeled "if you feel this message is in error ..." which leads to a
> bare-bones 404 page.

http://groups.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=3D15331&topic=3D25=
0

Dan.

-- =

Daniel Dyer
http://www.dandyer.co.uk

In article <1164288007.207992.244710@l12g2000cwl.googlegroups.com>,
Twisted <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote:
>Andrew Thompson wrote:
>> E.G. <http://www.physci.org/pc/jtest.jnlp>
>
>Sorry, I don't have any software on my system for interpreting .jnlp
>files, whatever those are. (And I *do* have software for the common and
>even many of the more obscure formats for images, archives, and the
>like, just to put that into some sort of perspective...)

You actually don't have a web browser?

(I am assuming you have a JRE since you're apparantly doing Java
development.)

Cheers
	Bent D
-- 
Bent Dalager - bcd@pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
                                    powered by emacs

Twisted wrote:
> Ian Wilson wrote:
> 
>> Just right click on the project name in the Package Explorer,
>> choose "new" then "folder", give it a name (e.g. "resources").
>> 
>> Then right-click that folder choose "import", navigate to your
>> image and select it.
>> 
>> Done.
> 
> 
> That's it? 

That is what I said.


> And it will be found by getResource during testing *and* 
> after deployment? 

That is what I said.


> (I assume using a relative URI like 
> getResource("resources/foo.gif")?

No, I didn't say *that*, *two* *days* *ago* I posted this:

 > I use Eclipse, I have an image for my app in a subdirectory of my
 > project. I have this code (and this code only) to load the image:
 >
 > setIconImage(new ImageIcon(MainForm.class
 >                  .getResource("/resources/logo32.png")).getImage());

Note the leading "/".

Ring any bells?

In article <1164284976.951949.225590@j44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
Twisted <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>What is it then -- network install? (Run installer. Pick features. It
>then downloads only what you need, as opposed to you downloading 50MB
>of self-extracter and only installing 10MB worth of the contents.)

It is a network installation framework. There isn't much feature
selection built in. Instead the application can choose which archives
it needs and which it doesn't.

>The repeated insinuation that I'm hallucinating (or whatever) is not
>going to get any less false for your repeating it enough times, you
>know.

I am not particularly concerned with its global truth value, but am
rather interested in finding out whether or not it will finally sink
in :-)

>> It typically has no more security implications than what you already
>> have on your development equipment. Presumably, your source code
>> resides in some directory structure on a local hard disk. If your
>> computer is ever connected to the Internet, then your code is in
>> jeopardy. Running a local Subversion (say) server on that machine
>> isn't going to do much to change that.
>
>That's a joke, right?
>
>If I'm running a server that gives direct access to the code, then it's
>damn easy for someone to mess with it. Otherwise, they have to find
>something else I'm running that functions as a server and compromise
>it, or trick me into installing a back door Trojan, or something
>similar. It's the difference between keeping jewelry in a back room
>safe (which might of course be found and cracked) and in a front window
>display case (much more visible and accessible).

Admittedly, this depends a lot on what operating system you use and
what you've done with it but the general case is that the back room
safe in this case is made from fragile glass and it is left outside in
the back alley.

>> Running a version control system is just common sense for any
>> semi-serious programming project, icons or no icons. The benefits
>> easily outweight the few hours it takes to download, install and learn
>> how to use it.
>
>It looks like maybe you define "semi-serious" as "multi-programmer", or
>perhaps as "aspiring to some sort of commercial use or to working
>professionally in the field" (yeah, right, when there's a glut of
>experts already, and lots of the others have industry contacts and
>industry experience that I lack).

"Semi-serious" basically means "not a throw-away one-use program that
I just need to this thing right here right now".

>As for "few hours", that sounds wildly optimistic to me, considering
>the evident complexity. There's the question of how it might interact
>with my existing development tools, too, of course (including *whether*
>it would, or I'd have to transport data manually between the two,
>though I think I saw something somewhere about eclipse being
>configurable as a client for version control servers).

It would surprise me if Eclipse did not support seamless version
control.

In my experience, getting started with Subversion consists of
dowloading the software, installing it (easy enough), reading the
manual (thereby learning that there is pretty much nothing you need to
configure) and getting on with things. Of course, as always, YMMV, so
you could certainly stumble into problems I did not.

Cheers
	Bent D
-- 
Bent Dalager - bcd@pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
                                    powered by emacs

wesley.hall@gmail.com wrote:
[snip some patronizing-toned stuff]

> Installing a local version control system does not run any kind of
> server process, of any kind, anywhere...

Well, this is interesting. First someone suggests I setup a server (and
the exact word "server" was definitely in their post), and I mention
that one of the added complexities of following their recommendation is
a new security consideration in that event. Amazingly, this comment
actually sparks a dispute in a newsgroup whose posters are all supposed
to be somewhat technical.

Now you appear to be implying that either that poster was wrong about
setting up a server -- which makes them wrong, not me -- or that there
are serverless setups (presumably only when no remote usage is planned
for) *and* server-based setups -- in which case I still wasn't wrong
because nobody had bothered to tell *me* that until now, and therefore
my statement was purely in regard to the server-based setups, for which
it remains true.

Either way, you don't actually even seem to be disputing what I said.
Yet you do seem to *feel* that you are disputing me, and even that you
are doing so with some success. I find this remarkable.

> I simply cannot make it any clearer than that, if you still do
> not understand then there is no hope.

We are clearly talking about two different things. As things stand now,
it appears that some other poster referred to one type of setup (which
has potential security risks, if misconfigured), and I was talking
about that; now you mention a completely different sort of setup and
behave as if I've made incorrect statements about *that* when in fact
I'd made no statements about it at all.

It's rather as if someone suggested apples, I said disposing of the
cores added complexity, you then objected that apples have no cores,
and it later emerged that you really meant oranges. And then you made
out that this was somehow *my* error. And because they are all in the
more general category of "fruit" ...

Perhaps you incorrectly broadened my statement about applies and
interpreted it to be a claim that all (rather than some) fruit had
cores, and trotted out oranges as some sort of clever counterexample,
then thought you had me? (Substitute "version control servers" for
apples, "local version control software" for oranges, "version control"
for fruit, and "security considerations" for "disposing of the cores".)

Damned peculiar. You could probably be a case study for some
influential psychiatrist, you know.

> If you eventually decide to use a remote server setup, then subversion
> is accessible via an extension to the HTTP protocol called DAV. Your
> subversion server is generally an apache server, which is widely used
> and well maintained. In this configuration, you would have security
> considerations, but nowhere near the magnitute you are suggesting.

For a security-knowledgeable HTTP server novice, the considerations
must be assumed to have the highest conceivable magnitude without
further familiarization.

> I run a linux server with my subversion server, it is not difficult to
> install, configure or secure, all processes are well documented.

You are therefore familiar with the whole process. It is safe to assume
that what you now find easy and natural a novice will find to be
awkward, new, and fraught with danger. Projecting your own attitudes,
born of extensive experience with a particular product, onto others,
and then assuming that they can't possibly have any problems since you
don't, is a fool's errand.

> There
> is a theorectical risk of compromise with any remotely accessible
> server, but an apache compromise would be huge huge news and a patch
> would be available in minutes (it would, after all, affect the majority
> of all webservers). Not running these standard tools due to attack
> paranoia is akin to not leaving your house for fear of being hit by a
> bus.

Running a server without a major reason is more akin to having a guest
room with an entry to the hall, an exit to the street, a lock between
it and the hall, and a relatively widely distributed key unlocking the
outside door. Although there's still a lock with only a
narrowly-distributed key between the guests and the valuables, there's
a much greater likelihood that somebody will set fire to the place or
something of the sort. And you run an increased risk of mixups
involving the various keys. Unless you're going into the business of
running a hotel or something, it's probably not worth it. If nobody
will actually be using the guest room except you, it definitely isn't.

> Of course, you didn't know that subversion generally uses apache as
> it's server, but you probably didn't even bother to try to find out for
> yourself either.

Without having any reason to consider actually deploying subversion at
this time, no, in fact, I did not.

> I am an asshole, a
> counter-productive manager, and the potential destroyer of civilization
> as we know it.

Now maybe we're getting somewhere. As I'm sure you are well aware, the
first step is admitting you have a problem. Today, Wesley H has taken a
significant step forward. We wish him well.

Twisted wrote:

<1147 lines of somewhat rambling argument>

For me, that's too long to be worth reading. If you are still interested 
in anyone's help, and if there was any Java question buried in that, 
maybe you could post a few (<10?) lines stating *one* issue you'd like 
help with.

On 23.11.2006 15:53 nebulous99@gmail.com wrote:
> Thomas Kellerer wrote:
>>
>> It took me about 10 minutes to figure out how to use a local CVS
>> repository...
> 
> I find that difficult to believe, unless the loophole is the obvious
> and you already knew a great deal about how to use a *remote* CVS
> repository, which is probably more complex.
> 
Well I *am* experienced with using CVS in general. And of course I had 
the CVS client stuff already installed (and I assume that everybody 
nowadays that is doing non-trivial software development does have a 
client for version control installed)

The big advantage with a local CVS repository is, that you actually 
don't need to install any server process (which is not the case for 
Subversion, one of the reason I am still using CVS for my one-man projects)

What it took to create the local repository was:

1) Open the CVS manual
2) Find a chapter that says something like "create repository"
3) read the commands described there
4) run the commands described in the manual
    (cvs -d c:\data\cvsrepos init)
5) setup my cvs client with the correct protocol to access the local 
repository

Does that really sound like more then 10 minutes?

(Actually I had to redo the steps to write this because that was about 2 
years ago, and I couldn't really remember, and again it took less then 
10 minutes)

> I flatly disbelieve your ten-minute figure, unless you found a magical
> CVS growing on a tree somewhere that you just unzip in a clearly
> explained place on your hard drive and then some IDE you already knew
> how to use (say, Eclipse) starts transparently and automatically using
> it as a backend without further ado.

Well I am *not* surprised that you don't believe that, as you disbelieve 
*anything* that was said on this thread (I admit I might have missed the 
responses where you actually said: "Oh, thanks for the answer, I will 
try that out")

And yes, I already knew how to access a CVS repository with my IDE 
(NetBeans, which has a very good CVS client built in). Back when I 
created the repository I actually had to tell NetBeans what the location 
of the repository was (:local:/data/cvsrepos).
The new versions of NetBeans do find that automagically.

Thomas

In article <1164286576.234890.309750@j44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
Twisted <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Anyway, it is entirely certain that you have done _something_ wrong.
>
>You continue to assert this, without bothering to furnish anything
>resembling proof. That could be construed as libel, and I could pursue
>legal action.

I suppose you could, if you had the guts to put your lawyer where your
mouth is. I won't be holding my breath :-)

>Either prove it or shut up.

I don't need to. I feel that it is self-evident that everyone does
something wrong occassionally. I am trying to determine whether you
consider yourself to be flawless and so far, it appears you do. I find
this information instructive and, indeed, useful.

>You seem to have a very strong desire to make people think that I was
>wrong.

Not that you "were wrong", so much that at some point or other in your
past, you have made mistakes. Everyone does this, and people in
general don't feel too bad about admitting it. For someone to
vehemently deny that they ever make mistakes is sufficiently deviant
behaviour that I find it of some academic interest.

> (And I'm actually not clear what specific thing you are trying
>to prove me wrong *about*, curiously enough.)

Nothing in particular. I am trying to determine if you are a
self-proclaimed flawless being.

Cheers
	Bent D
-- 
Bent Dalager - bcd@pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
                                    powered by emacs

Twisted wrote:
> Patricia Shanahan wrote:
>> My current project is a one-person project, part of my academic
>> research. I keep a subversion repository for it on a university server,
>> which provides both a revision history and an off-site backup. I use an
>> ssh tunnel so that the files in transfer to/from the server are encrypted.
> 
> And you probably wouldn't if the following weren't true:
> a) You were already familiar with this sort of thing, as a result of
> larger projects;

I might well have learned about it from other people's experience. I
found out about a lot of the tools and techniques I use by listening to
other programmers, reading newsgroup articles, etc.

> b) All of this stuff, including the hosting, you were not paying extra
> for;

I did revision control locally for my home programming projects even
when I did not have access to a server I could use for non-work
purposes. I did other things, such as keeping backup tapes in my car or
a safe deposit box, to get off-site backup.

> c) You're familiar enough with setting up things like ssh tunnels and
> security precautions to trust yourself to do this stuff without
> screwing it up and letting every Tom, Dick, and Harry with a rootkit
> and subscription to 2600 get in by mistake.

I learned ssh tunneling for my current project. That is not particularly
significant because some project was first for every single tool,
technique, programming language, API etc. that I have ever used.

>> I realize that this may not be a good time to experiment with revision
>> control for you, but do not eliminate the idea just because you are
>> working on a one-person project. I don't think it would take you weeks
>> to learn.
> 
> I never said I was "eliminating the idea", only questioning its being
> anything but overkill and added work for little gain in the context of
> this specific project.

I must have misinterpreted your comment "For a one-person project?
You're joking.". I read it as meaning you thought that revision
control is a joke for one-person projects, and wanted to make sure you
realize that it definitely isn't.

Patricia

Bent C Dalager wrote:
> In article <1164288007.207992.244710@l12g2000cwl.googlegroups.com>,
> Twisted <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote:
> >Andrew Thompson wrote:
> >> E.G. <http://www.physci.org/pc/jtest.jnlp>
> >
> >Sorry, I don't have any software on my system for interpreting .jnlp
> >files, whatever those are. (And I *do* have software for the common and
> >even many of the more obscure formats for images, archives, and the
> >like, just to put that into some sort of perspective...)
>
> You actually don't have a web browser?

I have a web browser, but it's the bog-standard variety that
understands .jpg, .gif, .png, .txt, .html, .shtml, .php, and
directories, and a few others (notably .svg). I've never actually even
*seen* a .jnlp file before today. (And I still haven't -- only two
links to such files, up from a grand previous total of zero.)

Why, what kind did you think I had?

> (I am assuming you have a JRE since you're apparantly doing Java
> development.)

I suppose this is some subtle suggestion that JREs come with a tool
that recognizes the .jnlp format. If so, it's not a tool I've had
occasion to use (or even investigate), obviously. (I would expect that,
given a JRE plug-in, my browser does add .class and .jar to its
repertoire. Which suggests that .jnlp could be some type of active
content similar to an applet. If so, I'd definitely want to know
whether it runs in the same type of sandbox before touching either URL
with a ten-foot pole.)

Ian Wilson wrote:
> No, I didn't say *that*, *two* *days* *ago* I posted this:
>
>  > I use Eclipse, I have an image for my app in a subdirectory of my
>  > project. I have this code (and this code only) to load the image:
>  >
>  > setIconImage(new ImageIcon(MainForm.class
>  >                  .getResource("/resources/logo32.png")).getImage());

What didn't occur two days ago was anyone (to my knowledge) mentioning
what they did on the file/project management (rather than code/API)
side, only that the latter was just the one line of code. :)

in message <1164280351.126417.237050@j72g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, Twisted
('twisted0n3@gmail.com') wrote:

> wesley.hall@gmail.com wrote:
>> > nobody has yet mentioned anything remotely resembling a URL for it,
>> > and it should be fairly obvious that a google search with the query
>> > "ant" is unlikely to produce anything relevant here.
>>
>> Clearly you didn't even try.
> 
> Of course I didn't. A three letter query with a different, mainstream
> dictionary meaning is far too likely to fail to be worth considering.
> 
>> Yes, it integrates easily with eclipse and any other serious IDE. It is
>> a tool for scripting your build process so, while there is a slight
>> overhead in writing the script (and it shouldnt be more than an hour or
>> two, infact, probably far less time than you have already spent arguing
>> the toss on this newgroup), once the script is written it will
>> significantly improve your build and testing cycle as you can use it to
>> automate your build, run your tests, generate your documentation,
>> create a Java webstart archive for your software, deploy it to an app
>> server (although this seems not to be required for your software) etc
>> etc.
> 
> There are a number of notes regarding the above:
> 1. An hour or two? I'll need some proof it can easily do something
> amazing you can't easily do with Eclipse on its own before that looks
> like a worthwhile investment of time.

That's easy. The advantage of an ant script is that it works identically
whether or not Eclipse is present. Eclipse is a wonderful tool but you
wouldn't use the Starship Enterprise to nip down the road to the chemists.

> 2. Webstart? This is a standalone app, rather than an applet, servlet,
> or some kind of specialized client/server thing. Are you sure this
> recommendation isn't based on a misapprehension of the nature of what
> I'm doing? It's quite possible that your suggestion is well suited for
> developing some kind of web app and rather less so in the case of a
> standalone one...

Webstart is, as I understand it, intended specifically for standalone
desktop apps. I have to confess I've never used it... but that's because I
don't write standalone desktop apps.

> 3. False dichotomy. You presuppose I have a choice to *either* use this
> tool *or* argue here. In fact, the choice is to argue here, or to use
> the tool *and* argue here. My choice not to argue here vanished the
> moment the first insult was slung. Now it is necessary to defend myself
> and my choices in front of the same audience you're trying to convince
> of my guilt/stupidity/whatever it is that you think.
> 
>> You will also be able to set up an use a continous integration
>> server that will periodically check out your code (assuming you are
>> running a version control system like CVS and subversion... and if not,
>> you should be)
> 
> For a one-person project? You're joking. It would take me weeks to
> learn to use such a complex tool, and then I have to operate some kind
> of a server, then some kind of equally unfamiliar client ... that even
> has *security* implications, since I have to make sure that the server
> isn't visible to the outside world if I start running a server of some
> sort.

Anyone with any degree of professionalism uses a version control tool of
some kind; it's basic. The client is built into practically every IDE
(like, for example, Eclipse), or you can (of course) script it with Ant.
You don't need to learn anything.

If you can't be bothered to run your own CVS or Subversion server,
SourceForge will be happy to run one for you.

Yes, if you're working on a one man project, you don't have to use the
team-working features of your version control tool, but when your customer
reports a bug in the build you delivered to him on 5th May, it's nice to
be able to check out the source of exactly that version to do your
debugging with. Saves shedloads of time and aggravation.

> And I thought some other people here were suggesting swatting flies
> with bazookas. This is closer to disinfecting a dirty toilet with a
> thermonuclear bomb.

No, it's more like cleaning the toilet bowl with a brush rather than doing
it with your fingers.


-- 
simon@jasmine.org.uk (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
                                        ,/|         _.--''^``-...___.._.,;
                                      /, \'.     _-'          ,--,,,--'''
                                     { \    `_-''       '    /
                                      `;;'             ;   ; ;
                                 ._..--''     ._,,, _..'  .;.'
                                (,_....----'''     (,..--''   

in message <1164289295.255015.141420@j44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, Twisted
('twisted0n3@gmail.com') wrote:

> Daniel Dyer wrote:
> [snip some opinions on what "should have been obvious" and the like]
>> > There are a number of notes regarding the above:
>> > 1. An hour or two? I'll need some proof it can easily do something
>> > amazing you can't easily do with Eclipse on its own before that looks
>> > like a worthwhile investment of time.
>>
>> This should do the job.  Save the following as build.xml in the root of
>> your project.  Edit the properties at the top to match the paths in your
>> project, and then run "ant" or "ant all" from the command line (from the
>> root directory of your project).  I don't remember how you set Eclipse
>> up to use this, but it's trivial in IDEA and NetBeans, so I can't
>> imagine
>> that it's very difficult.  If you need to extend this script, for
>> example to add a manifest, I'm sure you can work out how from the
>> examples in the manual (http://ant.apache.org/manual/index.html).
> 
> Given that Eclipse already rebuilds things automatically when they have
> changed, what advantage does this provide? (That's an honest question,
> not a rejection, disparagement, or anything else you may be tempted to
> misinterpret it as, by the way.)

It makes your project portable outside the Eclipse environment.

People can check out one of my projects from Sourceforge, cd to the
directory, type 'ant installer' and it's all done, regardless of what IDE
they use or don't use. Of course, they have to have ant; but compared to a
full IDE it's a small tool. Also, of course, as other people have said, it
makes scripted and automated builds easier.

-- 
simon@jasmine.org.uk (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

                 'You cannot put "The Internet" into the Recycle Bin.'

Your post was much too long for me, so I skimmed over parts of it. If I 
missed a direct question, I apologize. If you want me to address a missed 
direct question, repeat it to let me know.


"Twisted" <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1164278560.393821.302900@e3g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...
>>     As I've pointed out earlier, other people have posted here, being
>> "present", and not being submissive, and they don't get the responses you
>> seem to trigger.
>
> That's because they're not newbies. It's only when someone at the
> *bottom* of the pecking order asserts himself that the ones at the top
> pick fights. (And when someone in the middle asserts himself around
> someone that's higher up...)

    I was talking about newbies. For example, see this thread: 
http://groups.google.ca/group/comp.lang.java.programmer/browse_frm/thread/9fb39f03f5cc066e/f320a2cea44397b6

    AFAIK, the OP has only posted twice in comp.lang.java.programmer, and 
only once was the post a question. That question got answered.


[...]
> Surely a refusal to accept someone else's advice
> without question (while being willing to accept it conditional on
> further information, evidence, or what-have-you) can't be a crime, can
> it?

    (1) It was not clear to me that you would accept the advice pending more 
information or evidence.
    (2) I don't see any indication that someone considers refusal to accept 
someone else's advice as being a crime.

>> If this is the type
>> of responses you wanted, then great: you're getting what you want. If 
>> this
>> isn't the type of response you want, then you'll probably need to change
>> your actions.
>
> Unfortunately, there are a couple of problems with that.
> 1. If I change my response to always be submissive

    That's not what I'm recommending you to do. I've posted some 
recommendations already: Ask direct questions. Don't mention anything which 
is not directly related (like problems with your browser). I'm not even 
telling you to say "please" or "thank you", or anything like that. I don't 
know how you inferred a recommendation for submissiveness from my 
recommendations.

[...]
>> >>     Maybe one of the things you do differently is to believe that 
>> >> someone
>> >> asks you a question, they are not trying to help you.
>> >
>> > When the question seems to be aimed toward an intent of trying to prove
>> > some kind of perceived inadequacy of mine, rather than toward gathering
>> > information in a neutral way? You betcha.
>>
>>     Okay, so maybe if you STOP doing this, you wouldn't get the 
>> undesirable
>> responses you seem to be getting.
>
> Stop doing what?

    Stop believing that when someone asks you a question, they are not 
trying to help you.

> Ignoring questions whose sole purpose is some kind of
> entrapment, or which are at best irrelevant?

    No. Stop believing that you are capable at differentiating between 
questions which are intended to get the information nescessary to help you 
versus questions whose sole purpose is some kind of entrapment, or which are 
at best irrelevant.

> I don't recall the group
> charter being that a condition of help (or acceptance or whatever) is
> that n00bs have to answer every question put to them.

    I've never even read the group charter. But I can tell you, empirically 
and statistically, those who answer every question put to them have had a 
greater chance of getting the answers they wanted.

> What if one of
> them asks me for my credit card number -- I suppose I should trust them
> with that, too?

    No, you should not. On the other hand, I've never seen anyone on this 
group ever ask anyone for their credit card number, so this has never been a 
problem so far.

[...]
>
> One thing I notice that no-one has addressed was a point I raised
> yesterday about the woeful inadequacy of the search engines themselves.

    Perhaps because it's off topic and no one really cares.

> Or are you claiming that the mere *fact* of saying anything like "yes,
> but" or "won't that add xyz complexity/work/overhead?" constitutes
> something with an "emotional impact"?

    No. I was referring to your "I may have found a bug" post.

>> I'm not. Do
>> you want to know why? Then listen to my advise. Don't dismiss it out of
>> hand, because of some perception that I'm with "them" and therefore
>> "against" you. You don't have to agree with my advise, just listen to it.
>> Really think about it.
>
> [Error on first token of next line: > found where constructive
> suggestion expected. Construct incomplete. Parse terminated.]
>
> Oops. Looks like you have only half of a control structure there. You
> forgot to include the next couple of lines where you explain how you
> would have asked the original question differently, and once some
> arsehole popped up and told you what an idiot you were for googling the
> subject some more and then going ahead and doing it yourself instead of
> waiting sixteen hours for them to get around to climbing up onto their
> high horse and telling you the correct way to do it, what you would
> have said back to them.

    "Thanks. I'll keep your solution in mind for next time."

[...]
>
> OK, let me ask you a fairly direct question.
>
> Suppose you were in the exact situation I was. Suppose the following
> had happened:
> 1. You'd had a particular question arise regarding how to.

    This has happened before, so it's easy for me to put myself into this 
scenario.

> 2. You'd googled it and found nothing that appeared to be relevant.

    Ditto.

> 3. You asked here.

    Ditto.

> 4. After some hours went by without a single response (in a group that
> usually generates dozens of posts an hour), you googled some more and
> tried some more exotic queries and found something that appeared to
> describe what you wanted to accomplish.

    I usually expect a 2-3 day wait before getting a reply, but that doesn't 
mean I'll stop my google search, so this is starting to stretch it, but 
fine.

> 5. With some adjustments, you made the solution fit, and it actually
> worked as planned.

    Not too hard ot imagine.

> 6. You returned here to report "nevermind, I found this and it seems to
> work adequately for this case".

    Probably what I would do, yes.

> 7. The immediate response (in much less than one hour) is clearly and
> strongly disapproving of the method you used, and by extension of you.
> It mentions an alternative method that you know relatively little
> about, with the implicit assertion that you should know all about it
> too and if you don't already then you're probably a moron. Implied is
> that you should immediately rewrite your code to use their suggested
> method, even though the code currently works, with the vague impression
> that the so-and-so telling you this believes that if you don't change
> it right that instant your computer might catch fire or something.

    Except this hasn't happened, neither to you, nor to me. So it's quite a 
stretch of the imagination now. What would have likely happened to me (and 
what has actually happened to you) is that someone saw your post, thought 
their solution was better, and posted it. No implication of being moron, or 
anything like that.

> 8. You consider the alternative method, and a moderate number of
> questions occur to you, particularly regarding the ways that its
> implementation might complicate your project relative to how it is
> currently set up. In particular, the method seems likely to complicate
> the build process, although that may be a complication your build tools
> can automate for you. Nonetheless, at minimum it requires learning
> additional features of your existing build tools, possibly even some
> whole new build tools, and not just a bit of API here or there; it may
> also involve complicating the startup of your app with additional error
> recovery and other nuisances. As such, for your particular current
> circumstances, you're rather dubious that it's worth it, and for the
> longer run, you'd like to know more before accepting (or rejecting) the
> suggestion to use for similar purposes in the future.

    Okay, this step isn't unreasonable.

> 9. So, it comes time to respond to the surprising and hostile message
> you received...
>
> What do you do?

    Post my questions.

>
> How, exactly, would you have responded, and what differences from how I
> responded would you consider significant?

    I'd probably make my question explicit. E.g. instead of "Nobody is 
telling me what Ant is!", "What is Ant?" Instead of "Obviously, a google 
query for 'ant' would not turn up anything useful", "Where can I download 
Ant?", etc. I probably also wouldn't mention the inadequacies of search 
engines. I'd probably keep my post under 5000 words. I'd probably answer the 
questions asked of me.

[...]
>
>> Don't claim you've found a bug.
>
> Ever?

    No, the link I quoted gave an example of when it's okay to claim you've 
found a bug.

> Not even when the behavior is observed to have appeared with a
> new version? Even when that new version is a beta? Even if I only claim
> that I "might" have found one?

    None of these situations qualify, IMHO, and in the opiniong of the FAQ 
author.

>
> You are asking me to be dishonest, and that I won't do without a far
> better reason than because someone professes "I don't like it when you
> do that".

    Saying "I'm having problems with listeners. Here's my source code. 
Here's what behaviour I'm expecting. Here's what behaviour I'm experiencing. 
How come they differ?" is not dishonest.

[...]
> It was that last occurrence, which was earlier today, that disqualified
> you from an "apparently neutral" designation. You appear to be playing
> your own game here, although it's admittedly a subtle one, and
> apparently more so than those of most of the others that are playing
> any sort of game here at all. Unless that really was just a momentary
> lapse of judgment. Still, if so, it was a remarkable lapse indeed. In
> case you forget:
>
>> You posted your solution. Someone posts "Here's a better way to do it."
>> You read it, say "Ok" (either to yourself, or make an actual post saying 
>> just that), and
>> then go on, living your life.
>
> This was what you suggested. Basically, "Assume that everybody else in
> the world is right and you are wrong whenever you don't agree with
> someone else".

    Nowhere in my advice does it ask you to assume everyone else in the 
world is right and you are wrong.

> If everyone took the same advice, we'd still be living
> in the stone age; progress would be impossible. The reductio ad
> absurdum of this "advice" is to trot out the usual suspects: Galileo,
> Copernicus, Einstein ...

    You don't think any of these people, when challenged, ever said shrugged 
their shoulders and said "Ok" (in whatever language they speak), and went on 
with their lives? Take Einstein, for example. Don't you think, at one point 
in his life, someone told him relativity is the dumbest thing they'd ever 
heard of, to which Einstein might have shrugged and said the equivalent of 
"Ok.", and then went on with his life, giving presentations and lectures on 
relativity to other scientists? Or do you think he got bogged down, 
delaying, or even cancelling those lectures, to argue with that one 
particular person, who stubbornly refused to believe?

[...]
>
> Now this is not to suggest I'm some Galileo, and the people
> recommending getResource are flat-earthers. Clearly they are nothing of
> the sort, and I don't doubt that getResource has its uses, and plenty
> of them to boot. What I do doubt is that anyone should honestly
> recommend that people never question others or express doubt in what
> they said, or even just that they shouldn't doubt those who claim
> authority.
>
> But then, that isn't what you said, is it?

    No, you misread.

[...]

> Why
> is that -- am I somehow ineligible to do what I've heard is actually
> the duty of everyone in a democracy?

    Not to my knowledge.

> If so, you can't claim to be "neutral" while holding an
> obviously hostile opinion of me, now can you?

    In my opinion, my opinion of you is not hostile. I usually forget about 
you as soon as I exit this thread. To me, this is about as neutral as one 
can be.

>
> Damn. Now it's starting to look like *you* can safely be accused of
> being dumb, without much likelihood of being wrong. Either you said
> that honestly believing it (dumb!) or you said that thinking to trick
> me and thinking I might actually fall for it (dumb!!) or you said
> something that came out extraordinarily different in meaning from
> anything you even intended (dumb!!!) ...
>
> Perhaps you can enlighten me as to what you really intended with that
> particular piece of "advice". Then I can better classify you. (As to
> intent/neutrality, as well as IQ).

    My intent was "don't worry about what others think of you so much". I'll 
actually give you an example of this strategy right now. You think I'm 
really dumb, right? Ok, fine.

>> >>     Sorry to be blunt but IMHO, your stories are distracting and 
>> >> largely
>> >> uninteresting.
>> >
>> > You are free to ignore them if you perceive them that way.
>>
>>     Thank you.
>
> It's a little late for that. Instead of ignoring them, you criticized
> them; and then you didn't even take the hint that you should have
> ignored them if you didn't like them (and that, since you didn't, you
> should apologize). :P

    Sorry.

[...]
>
>> > PofN?
>>
>>     That's the username they post under.
>
> It's actually "PofN", rather than something else that you contracted to
> that in the (incorrect) assumption that I'd nonetheless know who you
> were talking about and be able to (how? Magic?) reconstruct the long
> version?
>
> Come on. I know usenetters, and if there's one thing they love to do
> more than baffle you with bullshit, it's aggravate you with acronyms,
> half of them made up on the spot and the rest still unintelligible to
> most people even with some educated guessing and a google search or
> two.

    Yes, "PofN".

http://groups.google.ca/group/comp.lang.java.programmer/msg/ace60e77355980fa

>
> It's impossible to avoid being insulted if the insults are unprovoked,
> if "don't provoke the insulters" is what you mean to suggest.

    In my opinion, it's not impossible. If you'd like a demonstration, wait 
a few days until I've forgotten about this thread, and then insult me out of 
the blue, without provocation. I predict that I won't feel insulted.

>
>>     People are insulting you, and you don't like it. You could try to
>> convince everybody to stop insulting you, or you could just ignore the
>> insults. Both solutions work, but one requires much more time, energy and
>> effort than the other.
>
> Eh what? No, you seem to have misunderstood. The options are to avoid
> the insults even being said or to rebut them. Ignoring them is
> emphatically not an option, since silence implies assent. Or have you
> forgotten that part?

    It's not forgotten, but disagreed.

[...]
>>
>>     I can explain to you how I arrived at that impression: You are
>> criticizing the "standard" solution, citing your solution as being 
>> superior.
>
> This is not only false, it's a complete joke. At no time did I do
> anything of the sort. I asked about various things that occurred to me
> as possible problems with the "standard" solution, and I pointed out
> specific advantages of "my" solution (which do not in any way imply it
> to be superior -- a few ticks under the "pro" column does not mean
> there aren't even more under the "con" column, after all).
>
> I am starting to suspect, however, that people honestly believe that I
> believe what you are saying they believe I believe,

    I'm glad.

> and that they
> actually do think that my putting a couple ticks under a "pro" column
> means I've decided that choice is superior already. If their grasp of
> even the most basic rules of logic is as terrible as you suppose,
> though, then WHAT THE BLAZING HELL ARE THEY DOING IN comp.*?!

    Everyone's free to post in comp.*; even those you deem to be unable to 
grasp the most basic rules of logic. Personally, I appreciate their 
presence: even if they cannot grasp logic, as you state, they do seem to 
know quite a bit about Java. When I ask Java questions here, someone usually 
has an answer for me.

> Logically, someone who can't tell the difference between putting some
> entries in a debit column of a ledger and actually being in debt should
> probably be unable to program his way out of a paper bag.

    You'd be surprised.

>
>> > Why does anyone here bother to sling it liberally around?
>>
>>     If you really want to know why, first I advise you to read some of 
>> the
>> other posts, and see if you agree with me that most of the time, people
>> don't sling disapproval around so much.
>
> What other posts? I'm not reading the 5000 a day that get posted here
> just on your recommendation; I have far too many other demands on my
> time, and this froup, of late, is already consuming rather more than
> its fair share.

    So read 2000 of them. Or just 20 of them. Or just 2. It doesn't really 
matter. Pick a thread you did not participate in, and see if you perceive 
the same disapproval there that you perceive here.

[...]
>
> In other words, you finally agree with me that I've done nothing wrong?
> Hooray!

    I've never been in disagreement with you about that. Like I said, it 
really has nothing to do with right or wrong. It's more about cause and 
effect.

>>     Well, that wasn't the intent.
>
> What was the intent of the "advice" to "just say OK" whenever anyone
> accused me of being wrong?
>
> I'm still waiting on that.

    To help you in avoiding the responses you seemed to not want to receive.

>
> I still can't determine what game you're playing, if any. The two
> hypotheses that best explain your behavior, "playing some subtle game
> or other" and "honest, neutral, but prone to fits of confusion" seem to
> do about equally good jobs...

    Another rule of thumb I usually use on Usenet is: If there are two (or 
more) interpretations for a given message, and one of them makes you really 
angry or upset, but the other one leaves you neutral or even happy, pick the 
latter one. You'll end up having a happier life.

    - Oliver 

Bent C Dalager wrote:
> >The repeated insinuation that I'm hallucinating (or whatever) is not
> >going to get any less false for your repeating it enough times, you
> >know.
>
> I am not particularly concerned with its global truth value, but am
> rather interested in finding out whether or not it will finally sink
> in :-)

By which you mean what? Whether sheer repetition *will* have some of
the lesser intellects hereabout believing it? Whether you can actually
eventually confuse *me* into believing it? Or at least baffle me long
enough to slip a zinger by under my radar and unopposed? I wouldn't bet
on it...

> >If I'm running a server that gives direct access to the code, then it's
> >damn easy for someone to mess with it. Otherwise, they have to find
> >something else I'm running that functions as a server and compromise
> >it, or trick me into installing a back door Trojan, or something
> >similar. It's the difference between keeping jewelry in a back room
> >safe (which might of course be found and cracked) and in a front window
> >display case (much more visible and accessible).
>
> Admittedly, this depends a lot on what operating system you use and
> what you've done with it but the general case is that the back room
> safe in this case is made from fragile glass and it is left outside in
> the back alley.

Not *this* box. You must be thinking of Joe Blow's Windows XP SP1 box
with full raw sockets and no firewall, or his Win98 box with wide-open
NetBIOS hole, or Joe Inc.'s rack of NT/IIS servers all lubed up and
ready to accept whatever prong someone wants to poke into them, most
with outdated Symantec or McAfee products and nothing else in the way
of protection software.

> >It looks like maybe you define "semi-serious" as "multi-programmer", or
> >perhaps as "aspiring to some sort of commercial use or to working
> >professionally in the field" (yeah, right, when there's a glut of
> >experts already, and lots of the others have industry contacts and
> >industry experience that I lack).
>
> "Semi-serious" basically means "not a throw-away one-use program that
> I just need to this thing right here right now".

Meaning you won't use version control on "hello, world", but you might
on a two-class pipsqueak that you rigged to automate picking your
lottery numbers or some shit like that?

Looks like you draw the line at dropping that nuke when the toilet
begins to look visibly grimy. ;)

What do you use to recharge your laptop, a tokamak?

> It would surprise me if Eclipse did not support seamless version
> control.

I had the impression that it could, after some one-time configuration
headaches of unknown magnitude. I'd have to research that sometime
tomorrow though to confirm it and to measure the severity of said
headaches on the Saffer-Simpson scale.

> In my experience, getting started with Subversion consists of
> dowloading the software, installing it (easy enough), reading the
> manual (thereby learning that there is pretty much nothing you need to
> configure) and getting on with things. Of course, as always, YMMV, so
> you could certainly stumble into problems I did not.

That's what I was afraid of. It's been *my* experience that if you
download any type of server software, install it, and do "pretty much
nothing" to configure it, you've just hung out the welcome mat for
Christ alone knows what. From which a firewall *might* save your bacon.

Now maybe that's not the case with Subversion specifically, or you're
talking about a local-only version control product that doesn't open
any network ports, but you didn't actually say so, so ... :)

in message <1164286984.436217.6890@j44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, Twisted
('twisted0n3@gmail.com') wrote:

> wesley.hall@gmail.com wrote:
>> For some strange reason, some of the content has gone missing from my
>> other reply. Perhaps a parsing bug in google groups. I will reiterate.
>>
>> > Webstart? This is a standalone app, rather than an applet, servlet,
>> > or some kind of specialized client/server thing. Are you sure this
>> > recommendation isn't based on a misapprehension of the nature of what
>> > I'm doing?
>>
>> No misapprehension at all. Please consider reading the first paragraph
>> on...
>>
>> http://java.sun.com/products/javawebstart/
> 
> Please tell me why you think it should ever even occur to me to visit
> this URL when not developing a weblication of any kind? Because unless
> you can think up a good reason, what's actually at that URL is moot --
> some of the people to whom it (supposedly) applies will not look there
> for it anyway.

Because, as other people have already politely told you it isn't
about 'weblications', it's about standalone desktop applications. It's the
standard way to make sure standalone desktop applications have all the
right resources they need to run successfully. Got that?

>> Yes, even for a one person project. You can run version control locally
>> and it will give you the ability to tag version, branch (to try out
>> experimental things without poluting your working version), and
>> rollback if needed. Each change will be tracked. Very worthwhile for
>> any project, 1 person or 100'000 people.
> 
> Any large enough project I assume you mean. It sounds like it adds
> complexity to pretty much every stage of the cycle, though, so not any
> sufficiently small project. And the dividing point is shifted towards
> larger projects for version control novices, for whom there's
> additional overhead involved.

Anything more complicated than Hello World benefits from version control
and the overhead is negligible. It's much simpler to commit into the CVS
than to make a backup.

-- 
simon@jasmine.org.uk (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

    ;; MS Windows: A thirty-two bit extension ... to a sixteen bit
    ;; patch to an eight bit operating system originally coded for a
    ;; four bit microprocessor and sold by a two-bit company that
    ;; can't stand one bit of competition -- anonymous

Ian Wilson wrote:
> Twisted wrote:
>
> <1147 lines of somewhat rambling argument>
>
> For me, that's too long to be worth reading. If you are still interested
> in anyone's help, and if there was any Java question buried in that,
> maybe you could post a few (<10?) lines stating *one* issue you'd like
> help with.

Unfortunately, since you didn't quote any of the original article, I
don't know to which one you are referring. However, it seems likely it
was a response to Oliver, and it is fairly likely that neither of those
contained anything of real interest to you.

in message <1164284976.951949.225590@j44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, Twisted
('twisted0n3@gmail.com') wrote:

> Bent C Dalager wrote:
>> Java Webstart is a framework for distribution and installation of
>> general Java applications. It has nothing to do with applets. Whether
>> or not it is restricted to web apps depends entirely what you mean by
>> the term "web app".
>>
>> If you wrote, say, a single-player Civilization clone in Java, then
>> Java Webstart would be a viable way of distributing that application.
> 
> What is it then -- network install? (Run installer. Pick features. It
> then downloads only what you need, as opposed to you downloading 50MB
> of self-extracter and only installing 10MB worth of the contents.)

Oh, at last... 

>> It typically has no more security implications than what you already
>> have on your development equipment. Presumably, your source code
>> resides in some directory structure on a local hard disk. If your
>> computer is ever connected to the Internet, then your code is in
>> jeopardy. Running a local Subversion (say) server on that machine
>> isn't going to do much to change that.
> 
> That's a joke, right?
> 
> If I'm running a server that gives direct access to the code, then it's
> damn easy for someone to mess with it.

And if you're behind a firewall, they can't, can they?

>> Running a version control system is just common sense for any
>> semi-serious programming project, icons or no icons. The benefits
>> easily outweight the few hours it takes to download, install and learn
>> how to use it.
> 
> It looks like maybe you define "semi-serious" as "multi-programmer", or
> perhaps as "aspiring to some sort of commercial use or to working
> professionally in the field" (yeah, right, when there's a glut of
> experts already, and lots of the others have industry contacts and
> industry experience that I lack).
> 
> As for "few hours", that sounds wildly optimistic to me, considering
> the evident complexity.

Ten minutes, more like it.

apt-get install cvs

> There's the question of how it might interact 
> with my existing development tools, too, of course (including *whether*
> it would, or I'd have to transport data manually between the two,
> though I think I saw something somewhere about eclipse being
> configurable as a client for version control servers).

Eclipse isn't configurable as a client for CVS. Eclipse is a working client
for CVS straight out of the box. There's no configuration to do, beyond
pointing it at your server.

-- 
simon@jasmine.org.uk (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

        ;; single speed mountain bikes: for people who cycle on flat mountains.

in message <1164288007.207992.244710@l12g2000cwl.googlegroups.com>, Twisted
('twisted0n3@gmail.com') wrote:

> Andrew Thompson wrote:
>> E.G. <http://www.physci.org/pc/jtest.jnlp>
> 
> Sorry, I don't have any software on my system for interpreting .jnlp
> files, whatever those are. (And I *do* have software for the common and
> even many of the more obscure formats for images, archives, and the
> like, just to put that into some sort of perspective...)

Then you don't have Eclipse on your system. 

-- 
simon@jasmine.org.uk (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

        ;; Woz: 'All the best people in life seem to like LINUX.'
        ;; <URL:http://www.woz.org/woz/cresponses/response03.html>

Bent C Dalager wrote:
> I don't need to. I feel that it is self-evident that everyone does
> something wrong occassionally.

I feel that it is self-evident that *you* have an ulterior motive,
besides trying to push some sort of generalized philosophical point
that is.

> I am trying to determine whether you
> consider yourself to be flawless and so far, it appears you do. I find
> this information instructive and, indeed, useful.

This does of course depend on what is meant by "flawless". If it
includes "acting in good faith" and "not knowingly doing something
wrong", then yes, it would seem to apply. Obviously, if I know
something is a bad idea I avoid doing it; and if I don't, my doing it
isn't a failing on my part, unless I *should* have known, which leads
to the whole question of "how should I have". More generally, I do the
best with the information I have at the time; which necessarily
includes some judicious pruning of decision trees. It is possible for a
superior option to be pruned heuristically, but the consequences of not
aggressively pruning include large amounts of time wasted on fruitless
link-chasing, needlessly-in-depth research, or other activities, not to
mention the possibility of actual adverse consequences from trying
something dangerous.

> >You seem to have a very strong desire to make people think that I was
> >wrong.
>
> Not that you "were wrong", so much that at some point or other in your
> past, you have made mistakes.

This seems to require a motive. I'm curiously no longer certain that
it's straightforward hostility; you seem to be angling for something
else than just to call me a name or whatever. However, I don't get the
impression that you have wholly benign intentions either.

> > (And I'm actually not clear what specific thing you are trying
> >to prove me wrong *about*, curiously enough.)
>
> Nothing in particular. I am trying to determine if you are a
> self-proclaimed flawless being.

See above. That depends on what is meant by "flawless". I expect that a
reasonable person that had walked a mile in my shoes the same day would
have made similar choices, given the same constraints of time and
effort. I expect purely factual calculations to actually be accurate
(whereas things closer to educated guesses become probabilistic, for
obvious reasons). I conclude from my own motives and other lines of
reasoning that it is not reasonable for anyone to come to a negative
judgment of me, personally, rather than of an outcome of some sort that
was perhaps unwanted, and that anyone who does judge me poorly is in
error. It seems to be a not-too-rare error, which I find curious. It
appears that people often judge using standards that can't be based on
purely reasonable expectations; that those standards in fact often
include hidden assumptions that prove to be false some of the time,
frequently involving at least one paranormal ability that the target of
judgment would have needed to avoid being found at fault --
precognition, telepathy, and omniscience are the three most common
categories of unreasonable expectation, where someone is blamed for,
respectively, a) not foreseeing something relatively unforeseeable, b)
not knowing what someone meant (where different from what they said),
and c) not knowing something, and generally additionally not having
known that there was something useful they should investigate where
such investigation would have led to knowing whatever-it-was.
(Yes, that last is difficult to describe. When you don't know
something, you may know that you don't, in which case you know a
question but not the answer. You can also not even know the question,
or it may not have occurred to you to ask it, perhaps because it
doesn't seem likely that the answer would be relevant to any of your
current problems, and it isn't one of the things you're particularly
curious about. Finally, it may additionally not be taught as part of a
basic education; if it is, however, expecting it to be widely known is
not unreasonable regardless of the other factors, at least here.)

<nebulous99@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1164297094.566614.115370@e3g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...
> Bent C Dalager wrote:
>> In article <1164288007.207992.244710@l12g2000cwl.googlegroups.com>,
>> Twisted <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >Andrew Thompson wrote:
>> >> E.G. <http://www.physci.org/pc/jtest.jnlp>
>> >
>> >Sorry, I don't have any software on my system for interpreting .jnlp
>> >files, whatever those are. (And I *do* have software for the common and
>> >even many of the more obscure formats for images, archives, and the
>> >like, just to put that into some sort of perspective...)
>>
>> You actually don't have a web browser?
>
> I have a web browser, but it's the bog-standard variety that
> understands .jpg, .gif, .png, .txt, .html, .shtml, .php, and
> directories, and a few others (notably .svg).

    Most webbrowsers don't actually understand php or shtml. Typically, when 
an URL ends with these extensions, they are actually serving HTML content.

> I've never actually even
> *seen* a .jnlp file before today. (And I still haven't -- only two
> links to such files, up from a grand previous total of zero.)
>
> Why, what kind did you think I had?
>
>> (I am assuming you have a JRE since you're apparantly doing Java
>> development.)
>
> I suppose this is some subtle suggestion that JREs come with a tool
> that recognizes the .jnlp format. If so, it's not a tool I've had
> occasion to use (or even investigate), obviously. (I would expect that,
> given a JRE plug-in, my browser does add .class and .jar to its
> repertoire. Which suggests that .jnlp could be some type of active
> content similar to an applet. If so, I'd definitely want to know
> whether it runs in the same type of sandbox before touching either URL
> with a ten-foot pole.)

    Well, we could tell you, but you might not take our word for it. Why not 
try googling for "jnlp"?

    - Oliver 

Oliver Wong wrote:

>     Another rule of thumb I usually use on Usenet is: If there are two (or
> more) interpretations for a given message, and one of them makes you
> really
> angry or upset, but the other one leaves you neutral or even happy, pick
> the
> latter one. You'll end up having a happier life.

As in:

Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by a disturbed
personality.
Never ascribe to a disturbed personality that which can be adequately explained
by stupidity.
Never ascribe to stupidity that which can be adequately explained by a poor
command of English.
Never ascribe to a poor command of English that which can be adequately
explained by bad typing.

;-)

    -- chris

Oliver Wong wrote:
>     I was talking about newbies. For example, see this thread:
> http://groups.google.ca/group/comp.lang.java.programmer/browse_frm/thread/9fb39f03f5cc066e/f320a2cea44397b6
>
>     AFAIK, the OP has only posted twice in comp.lang.java.programmer, and
> only once was the post a question. That question got answered.

Then specific questions must raise some peoples' ire.

I reposted my initial question in this thread, and could still see
nothing wrong with it.

>     (1) It was not clear to me that you would accept the advice pending more
> information or evidence.

I didn't explicitly state that I would not.

>     (2) I don't see any indication that someone considers refusal to accept
> someone else's advice as being a crime.

Perhaps "crime" is a strong word, but it is clear that there are some
here who consider anything other than *unconditional and unquestioning*
acceptance of their advice to be worthy of at least somewhat prickly or
scornful responses.

> >> If this is the type
> >> of responses you wanted, then great: you're getting what you want. If
> >> this
> >> isn't the type of response you want, then you'll probably need to change
> >> your actions.
> >
> > Unfortunately, there are a couple of problems with that.
> > 1. If I change my response to always be submissive
>
>     That's not what I'm recommending you to do.

If you would kindly reread the piece directly above that is from your
own earlier post, you will find that you were not recommending anything
less vague than "change your actions". I substituted more specifically
the change that seemed most likely to satisfy the personalities
currently causing problems.

> I've posted some recommendations already: Ask direct questions. Don't mention
> anything which is not directly related (like problems with your browser). I'm not even
> telling you to say "please" or "thank you", or anything like that. I don't
> know how you inferred a recommendation for submissiveness from my
> recommendations.

I didn't infer anything from those, but then you hadn't said those;
you'd simply said "change your actions". (You may have mentioned those
in a still-earlier post, but there they would have already been
responded to separately.)

It sounds like the only thing you can find fault with was mentioning
browser mishaps in the post announcing that I'd fixed the original
issue, and nothing whatsoever in the post asking the question
originally.

I find it likely that your assessment is not accurate. Of all the parts
of various postings that seem to have produced seriously critical
responses, the browser mishap is actually one of the most innocuous by
that measure. The *only* one to react negatively to that particular
passage was you.


>     Stop believing that when someone asks you a question, they are not
> trying to help you.

I never started to. Not "when someone asks a question" period, as
opposed to differentiating relevant questions from ones that seem to be
prying into why I'm doing something rather than getting more detailed,
relevant configuration info (or whatever).

>     No. Stop believing that you are capable at differentiating between
> questions which are intended to get the information nescessary to help you
> versus questions whose sole purpose is some kind of entrapment, or which are
> at best irrelevant.

Stop giving me orders like I'm some kind of tin soldier.

Your suggestion above is patronizing, and is the very thing I'm seeking
to avoid *without* it being at the price of meekness of some form or
another. Unquestioning acceptance of any assumption put to me is
therefore right out, as is believing myself inherently inadequate to
decide any particular thing.

I am discussion situations like, for instance,

Me: How do I get some foos to do bars?

Other: Why don't you use baz instead?
-or-
Why do you want to get foos to do bars?
-or-
What is the resulting bar used for later on?
.... etc.

As opposed to response questions like

What version are you using?
Are the foos of the XYZFoo subclass or the base class?
Do the bars need to be fiddlefaddle, or will just ordinary ones do?
....

You can clearly see the difference. The former don't further a goal of
determining how I can get some foos to do bars; they do however further
a goal of questioning whether I even want to get foos to do bars, or
what I want the bars for. The latter, on the other hand, are plainly
relevant to narrowing down the specifics of my requirements and of the
exact tool set I have available with which to do the job, without
questioning my requirements themselves.

The hidden assumption behind any question that suggests that I ought to
reconsider doing what I'm asking how to do is that someone thinks doing
it is dumb, and, moreover, that whoever it is is too cowardly to come
right out and say so.

>     I've never even read the group charter. But I can tell you, empirically
> and statistically, those who answer every question put to them have had a
> greater chance of getting the answers they wanted.

Even ones that pry, and appear intended to discover some hint of a
perceived wrongdoing that the questioner can then drag out into the
light to say "Aha! And another newbie is saved from his own stupidity",
pat himself on the back, and thereby have self-medicated with his
personal brand of Viagra-for-the-ego?

Er, thanks, but no thanks. People who get their kicks that way can
kindly go get them from someone else; but it's not my kink.

> > What if one of
> > them asks me for my credit card number -- I suppose I should trust them
> > with that, too?
>
>     No, you should not. On the other hand, I've never seen anyone on this
> group ever ask anyone for their credit card number, so this has never been a
> problem so far.

No; what it was was a _reductio_ad_absurdum_ of your somewhat foolish
claim that I'd be wise to answer *any* question put to me.

> > One thing I notice that no-one has addressed was a point I raised
> > yesterday about the woeful inadequacy of the search engines themselves.
>
>     Perhaps because it's off topic and no one really cares.

Actually, it had become tangentially on topic, since the answers to
questions like "whether I should have found X with google" were
becoming germane to some of the various attempts at fault-finding that
were developing by that time.

>     No. I was referring to your "I may have found a bug" post.

*sigh*

I *thought* we were discussing the mess that *this* thread has become.
It's certainly the only one worthy of considering a "problem" and
therefore trying to "fix" at this time.

Please cleanly separate discussion germane to this thread from
irrelevancies that properly belong in their respective threads.

In this particular thread, it does not seem that there was anything
faultable in any of the earliest postings I made (those being the ones
that count vis a vis deciding how this got started, as opposed to how
it continued at some later point or whatever, since the latter would
have been moot if it'd never gotten started anyway.)

The only thing you seem to have taken issue with from *this* thread now
is the browser bit in one of my earlier postings, and that is the only
thing that *nobody else* seems to have taken issue with, so it *can't*
be the problem.

I remain convinced that the problem isn't in *any* of my posts to this
thread whatsoever. If you believe otherwise, marshal some real evidence
please.

>     "Thanks. I'll keep your solution in mind for next time."

I've said things equivalent to this on several occasions.

> > 4. After some hours went by without a single response (in a group that
> > usually generates dozens of posts an hour), you googled some more and
> > tried some more exotic queries and found something that appeared to
> > describe what you wanted to accomplish.
>
>     I usually expect a 2-3 day wait before getting a reply, but that doesn't
> mean I'll stop my google search, so this is starting to stretch it, but
> fine.

This group generates replies usually in well under an hour -- to the
point that I now can't catch up on just this thread, since by the time
I've read everything new as of X:00, it's then X:20 and there's five
completely new posts in just that time (besides any by myself), and so
forth.

Is your 2-3 day figure a general figure for your average-case
newsgroup? That would closely ffit my own, but I fit my expectations in
a particular case to the known history of the particular newsgroup,
when there's enough data points.

> > 5. With some adjustments, you made the solution fit, and it actually
> > worked as planned.
>
>     Not too hard ot imagine.
>
> > 6. You returned here to report "nevermind, I found this and it seems to
> > work adequately for this case".
>
>     Probably what I would do, yes.

Well, then, you would potentially land in an identical pickle. Because
in this particular instance, it all went pear-shaped right after that
point without any further intervention from me!

> > 7. The immediate response (in much less than one hour) is clearly and
> > strongly disapproving of the method you used, and by extension of you.
> > It mentions an alternative method that you know relatively little
> > about, with the implicit assertion that you should know all about it
> > too and if you don't already then you're probably a moron. Implied is
> > that you should immediately rewrite your code to use their suggested
> > method, even though the code currently works, with the vague impression
> > that the so-and-so telling you this believes that if you don't change
> > it right that instant your computer might catch fire or something.
>
>     Except this hasn't happened, neither to you, nor to me.

*goggles*

What, are you blind? Did you not read the early part of this thread at
all? Did you also not read the bits I reposted in the message to which
you just replied??

> So it's quite a
> stretch of the imagination now. What would have likely happened to me (and
> what has actually happened to you) is that someone saw your post, thought
> their solution was better, and posted it. No implication of being moron, or
> anything like that.

That's a damned charitable interpretation of even the early returns,
nevermind some of the later ones, and you know it.

> > What do you do?
>
>     Post my questions.

Well, there you go. I guess I'm absolved of guilt then, since that's
also what I did. :P Not that it helps me much.

>     I'd probably make my question explicit. E.g. instead of "Nobody is
> telling me what Ant is!", "What is Ant?" Instead of "Obviously, a google
> query for 'ant' would not turn up anything useful", "Where can I download
> Ant?", etc. I probably also wouldn't mention the inadequacies of search
> engines. I'd probably keep my post under 5000 words. I'd probably answer the
> questions asked of me.

These are mischaracterizations. For instance, I actually knew what ant
was, for starters; what I asked was what the advantages were for a
project of the small scope in question. Also, when I noticed that
everyone was virtually raving about it but no-one was saying anything
about obtaining it, I drew attention to that fact, not so much to
locate it (which I would probably have been able to manage without too
much difficulty anyway) but because I thought it curious that everybody
seemed to assume that I would already know.

The search engine thing seems to have bugged you, but like the browser
thing, it seems to have bugged no-one else -- it's one of the things
that drew the least criticism at that point (in fact, there zero
replies to that bit, all told).

You seem to be irritated not merely by different things than the ones
who actually get somewhat nasty, but in fact only by some of the things
that didn't bug them at all (and vice versa).

>     No, the link I quoted gave an example of when it's okay to claim you've
> found a bug.

And that example was actually applicable to the cases where I did.

Except that I didn't; I just claimed that I'd found a "possible" bug.

> > Not even when the behavior is observed to have appeared with a
> > new version? Even when that new version is a beta? Even if I only claim
> > that I "might" have found one?
>
>     None of these situations qualify, IMHO, and in the opiniong of the FAQ
> author.

This flatly contradicts what you said earlier. You quoted directly from
that FAQ that observing a regression against a previous version
specifically *does* qualify for an exception. Furthermore, that FAQ
stated *nothing* about what, if any, loosening of conditions occurred
when "claim to have found a bug" was changed to "suspect you may have
found a bug". (I might add that it also stated nothing whatsoever in
the way of a rationale for these rules. You seem to regard them as
fairly inflexible, perhaps even as actual laws, but I don't recall any
legislative process being mentioned, nor any representatives debating,
nor any elections for said representatives at which I might cast my
vote, nor any judiciary, constitution, or similar to limit and
interpret with will of that deliberative body! Rather, they look to
have been pulled out of somebody's hat and then stated as absolute
without any supporting reason.

>     Saying "I'm having problems with listeners. Here's my source code.
> Here's what behaviour I'm expecting. Here's what behaviour I'm experiencing.
> How come they differ?" is not dishonest.

Lies of omission? Also, this seems to be most germane to the wrong
thread.

> >> You posted your solution. Someone posts "Here's a better way to do it."
> >> You read it, say "Ok" (either to yourself, or make an actual post saying
> >> just that), and
> >> then go on, living your life.
> >
> > This was what you suggested. Basically, "Assume that everybody else in
> > the world is right and you are wrong whenever you don't agree with
> > someone else".
>
>     Nowhere in my advice does it ask you to assume everyone else in the
> world is right and you are wrong.

No; instead, your advice merely implies it. What it explicitly asks me
to do is to acquiesce to everyone else's judgment, from which one
infers that I'm to consider that judgment to be superior to my own,
from which what I inferred follows easily and elementarily.

Unless, of course, you actually meant that I should acquiesce *falsely*
(i.e. the first thing, acquiesce, without the second, consider my
judgment to be inferior).

Dishonesty seems like it may be a method of fairly early resort for
problem-solving for you, doesn't it?

>     You don't think any of these people, when challenged, ever said shrugged
> their shoulders and said "Ok" (in whatever language they speak), and went on
> with their lives?

When it was before an audience? Nope. In private? Possibly (but then
there's unlikely to be any documentation for those instances is there?)

> Take Einstein, for example. Don't you think, at one point
> in his life, someone told him relativity is the dumbest thing they'd ever
> heard of, to which Einstein might have shrugged and said the equivalent of
> "Ok.", and then went on with his life, giving presentations and lectures on
> relativity to other scientists? Or do you think he got bogged down,
> delaying, or even cancelling those lectures, to argue with that one
> particular person, who stubbornly refused to believe?

Agreeing to disagree with the person is very different from acquiescing
to their "superior" judgment. But agreeing to disagree takes two, like
any other sort of agreeing. If one side stubbornly refuses to concede a
loss or even a draw, then the other side has to either concede a loss
or keep fighting. And in some cases, the former would be dishonest
(when that side is nowhere near convinced that they're anything in the
neighborhood of "flatly wrong", for instance).

>     My intent was "don't worry about what others think of you so much". I'll
> actually give you an example of this strategy right now. You think I'm
> really dumb, right? Ok, fine.

You'd concede a significant point in front of an audience while
(presumably) disbelieving it and where it actually impugns you in some
manner?

Sorry, I won't follow you through that door -- sign says "Masochists
Only" and I fear I might get in trouble if I go somewhere I obviously
don't belong.

> > It's a little late for that. Instead of ignoring them, you criticized
> > them; and then you didn't even take the hint that you should have
> > ignored them if you didn't like them (and that, since you didn't, you
> > should apologize). :P
>
>     Sorry.

Accepted.

> > It's actually "PofN", rather than something else that you contracted to
> > that in the (incorrect) assumption that I'd nonetheless know who you
> > were talking about and be able to (how? Magic?) reconstruct the long
> > version?
> >
> > Come on. I know usenetters, and if there's one thing they love to do
> > more than baffle you with bullshit, it's aggravate you with acronyms,
> > half of them made up on the spot and the rest still unintelligible to
> > most people even with some educated guessing and a google search or
> > two.
>
>     Yes, "PofN".

Must be that it's they, not you, intending to aggravate people with
acronyms then. :P

> > It's impossible to avoid being insulted if the insults are unprovoked,
> > if "don't provoke the insulters" is what you mean to suggest.
>
>     In my opinion, it's not impossible. If you'd like a demonstration, wait
> a few days until I've forgotten about this thread, and then insult me out of
> the blue, without provocation. I predict that I won't feel insulted.

That's the most illogical thing I've heard since -2197483648

Oops, sorry, looks like an integer underflow may have happened. ;)

Tell me though, if you anesthetize yourself and then someone cuts off
your arm:
a) Does it hurt?
b) Do you still lose the arm?
c) Would you have preferred it the other way around?

> > Eh what? No, you seem to have misunderstood. The options are to avoid
> > the insults even being said or to rebut them. Ignoring them is
> > emphatically not an option, since silence implies assent. Or have you
> > forgotten that part?
>
>     It's not forgotten, but disagreed.

What?

OK, time for another mindbender then.

If you put a block weighing 6 newtons on a level frictionless surface,
attached by a spring to a fixed point on that surface, what happens:
a) if the block is left alone?
b) if a rightward force is applied steadily at the center of the left
side of the block?
c) if forces of equal magnitude are applied steadily at the centers of
the left *and* right sides of the block, directly through the block in
both cases?

> > I am starting to suspect, however, that people honestly believe that I
> > believe what you are saying they believe I believe,
>
>     I'm glad.

Why? I didn't actually say those things!

> > and that they
> > actually do think that my putting a couple ticks under a "pro" column
> > means I've decided that choice is superior already. If their grasp of
> > even the most basic rules of logic is as terrible as you suppose,
> > though, then WHAT THE BLAZING HELL ARE THEY DOING IN comp.*?!
>
>     Everyone's free to post in comp.*; even those you deem to be unable to
> grasp the most basic rules of logic.

You misunderstand me. It wasn't meant to be interpreted as "Who let
those idiots into the mensa-only club?!"; it was meant to be
interpreted as "What on earth did they come here hoping to
accomplish?!".

> Personally, I appreciate their
> presence: even if they cannot grasp logic, as you state, they do seem to
> know quite a bit about Java. When I ask Java questions here, someone usually
> has an answer for me.

An answer from someone whose reasoning capabilities are on that level
is probably worse than no answer at all. What proportion of the answers
you receive tend to work decently and additionally don't come with
either side effects (in implementation) or some kind of lunacy (in the
form of usenet literature) attached?

>     So read 2000 of them. Or just 20 of them. Or just 2. It doesn't really
> matter. Pick a thread you did not participate in, and see if you perceive
> the same disapproval there that you perceive here.

I'd like to read about minus fifty of them, since that's what it would
take to counterbalance the time wasted just trying to keep up with
*this single thread*.

>     I've never been in disagreement with you about that. Like I said, it
> really has nothing to do with right or wrong. It's more about cause and
> effect.

Well, it was also possible to draw the conclusion that nothing in my
early posts to the thread caused this treatment of me, either -- not
avoidably so, anyway, and not by actually being offensive in any way
either.

It remains true that the two things you suggest doing differently
(browser ... search engine) were two of maybe ten that would definitely
have made no difference whatsoever, since they seem to have been
ignored in all the replies *except yours*.

> >>     Well, that wasn't the intent.
> >
> > What was the intent of the "advice" to "just say OK" whenever anyone
> > accused me of being wrong?
> >
> > I'm still waiting on that.
>
>     To help you in avoiding the responses you seemed to not want to receive.

Yes, but at what price?

>     Another rule of thumb I usually use on Usenet is: If there are two (or
> more) interpretations for a given message, and one of them makes you really
> angry or upset, but the other one leaves you neutral or even happy, pick the
> latter one. You'll end up having a happier life.

That sounds to me like a recipe for disaster. The best-case scenario is
being wide open to being the butt of someone's jokes and having
voluntarily made yourself turnip-dumb enough tto actually like it. The
worst-case scenario tends to involve scams and credit-card numbers...

Twisted wrote:
> wesley.hall@gmail.com wrote:
> > You should do stand-up, either that, or go and work for google, clearly
> > they have much to learn from you.
>
> If, as you claim, the top hit for "ant" isn't the dictionary definition
> or even remotely related but is instead for some obscure software that
> only a minuscule fraction as many people have even heard of, then
> Google clearly does have much to learn -- from *somebody*, anyway.

http://www.google.com/search?q=ant

See it for yourself.

Google tends to rank things based on relevancy (usually by the number
of links pointing to a site).  Apache's ANT is quite popular, to the
point of being nearly ubiquitous. The is why they are the top result.

You seem to *think* you know a lot, but when 99% of people disagree
with you (most of which provide valid arguments), it might be time to
conceed that you, in strange fact, don't always know what is best.

Honestly, I would expect such stubborness from a 13 year old, but you
seem older than that, which is why your behavoiur has evoked such a
strong reaction.

Two lessons for you:
1) Never underestimate Google's ability to find what you what. Its not
always the first hit, but it is often the first page. Especially if
everyone else seems to think its a common thing (common enough to
mention only by name and not website)

2) When many people are telling you something, try to let go of your
defensiveness.  You'll end up learning more for people with more
experience (That IS why you came to this newsgroup, right?), and you'll
get more respect in life.

Twisted wrote:
> Oliver Wong wrote:
> >     More explicitly, beans and NetBeans are not the same thing.
>
> Well, judging by the name, NetBeans are beans *with internet added!* or
> something of the sort. :) (Kind of the way half the current US patent
> applications are some preexisting business model *with internet added!*
> ...)

NetBeans is an IDE, similar to Eclipse and JetBrains' IDEA.

As a matter of fact, I believe NetBeans is the IDE provided on Sun's
website.

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/download-netbeans.html

Perhaps if you weren't afraid of asking google, even if you doubt the
results are going to be relevant, you'd learn something.

You have proven to me that you make far too many assumptions without
even a cursory amount of research to back it up.

<nebulous99@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1164303197.726441.19280@j44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

[...]
> I am discussion situations like, for instance,
>
> Me: How do I get some foos to do bars?
>
> Other: Why don't you use baz instead?
> -or-
> Why do you want to get foos to do bars?
> -or-
> What is the resulting bar used for later on?
> ... etc.
>
> As opposed to response questions like
>
> What version are you using?
> Are the foos of the XYZFoo subclass or the base class?
> Do the bars need to be fiddlefaddle, or will just ordinary ones do?
> ...
>
> You can clearly see the difference. The former don't further a goal of
> determining how I can get some foos to do bars; they do however further
> a goal of questioning whether I even want to get foos to do bars, or
> what I want the bars for. The latter, on the other hand, are plainly
> relevant to narrowing down the specifics of my requirements and of the
> exact tool set I have available with which to do the job, without
> questioning my requirements themselves.

    This is actually pretty standard on most comp.* newsgroups I've been to. 
And again, I recommend that you do answer questions of the form "Why don't 
you use baz instead?", "Why do you want to get foos to do bars?", and "What 
is the resulting bar used for later on?". Again, in my experience, those who 
do this are more likely to get the answers they want.

[...]
>
>>     I've never even read the group charter. But I can tell you, 
>> empirically
>> and statistically, those who answer every question put to them have had a
>> greater chance of getting the answers they wanted.
>
> Even ones that pry, and appear intended to discover some hint of a
> perceived wrongdoing that the questioner can then drag out into the
> light to say "Aha! And another newbie is saved from his own stupidity",
> pat himself on the back, and thereby have self-medicated with his
> personal brand of Viagra-for-the-ego?

    I think it never occurs to those posters that the questions being posed 
of them might be some sort of trap. They just answer them, and then they get 
their own questions answered, and everybody is happy.

[...]
>> > What if one of
>> > them asks me for my credit card number -- I suppose I should trust them
>> > with that, too?
>>
>>     No, you should not. On the other hand, I've never seen anyone on this
>> group ever ask anyone for their credit card number, so this has never 
>> been a
>> problem so far.
>
> No; what it was was a _reductio_ad_absurdum_ of your somewhat foolish
> claim that I'd be wise to answer *any* question put to me.

    Yes, in retrospect, it was a foolish blanket statement in theory, but it 
seems to work in practice, given that the "What's your credit card number" 
questions never seem to get asked in practice.

[...]
>
> I remain convinced that the problem isn't in *any* of my posts to this
> thread whatsoever. If you believe otherwise, marshal some real evidence
> please.

    The (paraphrasing here) "Obviously, a Google search for 'ant' wouldn't 
give me any results related to the Ant software in question" and "Well, if 
it does, then Google has a lot to learn from me." posts are pretty arrogant, 
IMHO.

[...]
>
> Is your 2-3 day figure a general figure for your average-case
> newsgroup?

    It's sort of a minimum. For low traffic newsgroups, I'd raise the 
estimate to maybe a week or more. Java is a big topic, and there are a 
experts in this newsgroup, but typically, they are experts only in a 
particular subdomain (e.g. J2EE, or concurrency, or networking, etc.), and 
not an expert in all of Java. Also, I consider myself to understand the 
basics of Java pretty well, so that my questions typically aren't so called 
"newbie" questions that the vast majority of posters here could answer. 
Therefore, when I ask a question, probably only 5 to 10 people actually know 
the answer with good certainty.

    Chances are, these 10 people aren't reading the newsgroup during the 
same period that I'm making the post. Some of them may only read the 
newsgroup from work/school, and have gone home for the day, for example. In 
that case, I'd probably have to wait until the next day for them to come 
back, assuming they check the groups everyday. Personally, I tend to check 
the groups (but don't bother to read every single message in them) every 
weekday, but I don't access them on the weekends. Others may have different 
access patterns. This is how I arrived at the 2-3 day figure for "busy" 
newsgroups, and "7 days or more" for the less busy ones.

>> > 7. The immediate response (in much less than one hour) is clearly and
>> > strongly disapproving of the method you used, and by extension of you.
>> > It mentions an alternative method that you know relatively little
>> > about, with the implicit assertion that you should know all about it
>> > too and if you don't already then you're probably a moron. Implied is
>> > that you should immediately rewrite your code to use their suggested
>> > method, even though the code currently works, with the vague impression
>> > that the so-and-so telling you this believes that if you don't change
>> > it right that instant your computer might catch fire or something.
>>
>>     Except this hasn't happened, neither to you, nor to me.
>
> *goggles*
>
> What, are you blind? Did you not read the early part of this thread at
> all? Did you also not read the bits I reposted in the message to which
> you just replied??

    I've read most of them, yes. Certainly, I've read all the posts to this 
thread that were made over 24 hours ago (though I skimmed through some of 
the longer ones). I think the problem here is that you consider the 
statement "the immediate response is clearly and strongly disapproving" to 
be objectively true, whereas I consider it to be subjectively true at best, 
and false at worst.

    Without getting too metaphysical, I'm saying there may be a difference 
between reality and your perception of reality.

>
>> So it's quite a
>> stretch of the imagination now. What would have likely happened to me 
>> (and
>> what has actually happened to you) is that someone saw your post, thought
>> their solution was better, and posted it. No implication of being moron, 
>> or
>> anything like that.
>
> That's a damned charitable interpretation of even the early returns,
> nevermind some of the later ones, and you know it.

    I disagree.

>> > What do you do?
>>
>>     Post my questions.
>
> Well, there you go. I guess I'm absolved of guilt then, since that's
> also what I did. :P Not that it helps me much.

    Well, guilt... it's a loaded word. As I've said before, I don't think 
this has anything to do with right or wrong. Did you do something "wrong"? 
The word "wrong" is meaningless in this context. I think it has more to do 
with cause and effect. There was an effect. Did your post participate in the 
cause that effect? Yes.

    So I don't know if you want to call it "guilt" or not. Personally, I'd 
avoid using that term to describe what happened here.

>>     I'd probably make my question explicit. E.g. instead of "Nobody is
>> telling me what Ant is!", "What is Ant?" Instead of "Obviously, a google
>> query for 'ant' would not turn up anything useful", "Where can I download
>> Ant?", etc. I probably also wouldn't mention the inadequacies of search
>> engines. I'd probably keep my post under 5000 words. I'd probably answer 
>> the
>> questions asked of me.
>
> These are mischaracterizations. For instance, I actually knew what ant
> was, for starters; what I asked was what the advantages were for a
> project of the small scope in question. Also, when I noticed that
> everyone was virtually raving about it but no-one was saying anything
> about obtaining it, I drew attention to that fact, not so much to
> locate it (which I would probably have been able to manage without too
> much difficulty anyway) but because I thought it curious that everybody
> seemed to assume that I would already know.

    You drew attention to people no saying anything about obtaining ant, 
why? Is it because you wanted to know how to obtain ant? If so, you should 
just ask directly. If you not, then perhaps because you wanted other people 
to change their behaviour? If so, recall the fable on changing others versus 
changing yourself. If not, then you had some other reason which I am unable 
to currently guess, so I have no further recommendations.

>
> The search engine thing seems to have bugged you, but like the browser
> thing, it seems to have bugged no-one else -- it's one of the things
> that drew the least criticism at that point (in fact, there zero
> replies to that bit, all told).
>
> You seem to be irritated not merely by different things than the ones
> who actually get somewhat nasty, but in fact only by some of the things
> that didn't bug them at all (and vice versa).

    I guess I was wrong about people not liking offtopic posts then.

>>     Saying "I'm having problems with listeners. Here's my source code.
>> Here's what behaviour I'm expecting. Here's what behaviour I'm 
>> experiencing.
>> How come they differ?" is not dishonest.
>
> Lies of omission? Also, this seems to be most germane to the wrong
> thread.

    It's only a lie of omission if people are interested in the information, 
and you purposely do not support or deny the information. I don't think 
anyone is interested in whether you actually think what you have found is a 
bug or not. Rather, they are only interested in what you've actually found 
itself. They will judge for themselves whether it is a bug in their opinion.

    But again, I might be wrong about that. I've been wrong about guessing 
what other people on this group think before.

>> >> You posted your solution. Someone posts "Here's a better way to do 
>> >> it."
>> >> You read it, say "Ok" (either to yourself, or make an actual post 
>> >> saying
>> >> just that), and
>> >> then go on, living your life.
>> >
>> > This was what you suggested. Basically, "Assume that everybody else in
>> > the world is right and you are wrong whenever you don't agree with
>> > someone else".
>>
>>     Nowhere in my advice does it ask you to assume everyone else in the
>> world is right and you are wrong.
>
> No; instead, your advice merely implies it. What it explicitly asks me
> to do is to acquiesce to everyone else's judgment, from which one
> infers that I'm to consider that judgment to be superior to my own,
> from which what I inferred follows easily and elementarily.

    Ok, so don't take my advice.

>
> Unless, of course, you actually meant that I should acquiesce *falsely*
> (i.e. the first thing, acquiesce, without the second, consider my
> judgment to be inferior).
>
> Dishonesty seems like it may be a method of fairly early resort for
> problem-solving for you, doesn't it?

    Not in my opinion.

>
>>     You don't think any of these people, when challenged, ever said 
>> shrugged
>> their shoulders and said "Ok" (in whatever language they speak), and went 
>> on
>> with their lives?
>
> When it was before an audience? Nope. In private? Possibly (but then
> there's unlikely to be any documentation for those instances is there?)

    Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if it might have happened before an 
audience. I can easily imagine Einstein giving a lecture on relativity 
before an assembly of physicists, and someone standing up and shouting (in 
German) "This is all nonsense!" to which Einstein might have replied "Ok, I 
respect your freedom to disagree with me. If you do not wish to hear my 
theories, feel free to leave the lecture hall, but there are 200 other 
scientists here who seem to be interested in hearing about it, so for their 
benefit, I'd like to continue my explanation uninterrupted." And then he 
goes on, doing what he was doing before the interruption, as if nothing had 
happened.

    I don't know if this ever actually happened, but if it did, I don't 
think Einstein had lost any credibility from doing this, instead of choosing 
to argue with that one person.

>> Take Einstein, for example. Don't you think, at one point
>> in his life, someone told him relativity is the dumbest thing they'd ever
>> heard of, to which Einstein might have shrugged and said the equivalent 
>> of
>> "Ok.", and then went on with his life, giving presentations and lectures 
>> on
>> relativity to other scientists? Or do you think he got bogged down,
>> delaying, or even cancelling those lectures, to argue with that one
>> particular person, who stubbornly refused to believe?
>
> Agreeing to disagree with the person is very different from acquiescing
> to their "superior" judgment.

    Agreed.

> But agreeing to disagree takes two, like
> any other sort of agreeing.

    I disagree.

> If one side stubbornly refuses to concede a
> loss or even a draw, then the other side has to either concede a loss
> or keep fighting.

    Again, disagreed.

[...]
>>     My intent was "don't worry about what others think of you so much". 
>> I'll
>> actually give you an example of this strategy right now. You think I'm
>> really dumb, right? Ok, fine.
>
> You'd concede a significant point in front of an audience while
> (presumably) disbelieving it and where it actually impugns you in some
> manner?

    I don't think there's anything to concede. You claim that you think I'm 
dumb. I fully believe that you think I'm dumb. And I have no problem with 
that, because I don't really care what you think of me. I personally I don't 
think I'm dumb. And I don't think there's any conflict with you think I'm 
dumb and me thinking I'm not dumb. Just like there'd be no conflict if I 
think vanilla tastes better than chocolate, and you think chocolate tastes 
better than vanilla. Different people think different things.

    You consider this newsgroup to be in front of a public audience, right? 
So here we are. You're publicly telling me that you think I'm dumb, and I 
have no reason to doubt that you think I'm dumb. So I'll repeat it in front 
of the audience: Twisted thinks I'm dumb.

    And now I'll keep on living my life, answering questions posted on this 
forum when I believe I can make a useful contribution, and generally proceed 
the same way as I would have, had you never told me that you thought I was 
dumb.

>
> Sorry, I won't follow you through that door -- sign says "Masochists
> Only" and I fear I might get in trouble if I go somewhere I obviously
> don't belong.

    No need to apologize.

>> > It's actually "PofN", rather than something else that you contracted to
>> > that in the (incorrect) assumption that I'd nonetheless know who you
>> > were talking about and be able to (how? Magic?) reconstruct the long
>> > version?
>> >
>> > Come on. I know usenetters, and if there's one thing they love to do
>> > more than baffle you with bullshit, it's aggravate you with acronyms,
>> > half of them made up on the spot and the rest still unintelligible to
>> > most people even with some educated guessing and a google search or
>> > two.
>>
>>     Yes, "PofN".
>
> Must be that it's they, not you, intending to aggravate people with
> acronyms then. :P

    Well, it's just a name. Names can be anything. I was never really 
concerned about what PofN stood for, if anything.

>> > It's impossible to avoid being insulted if the insults are unprovoked,
>> > if "don't provoke the insulters" is what you mean to suggest.
>>
>>     In my opinion, it's not impossible. If you'd like a demonstration, 
>> wait
>> a few days until I've forgotten about this thread, and then insult me out 
>> of
>> the blue, without provocation. I predict that I won't feel insulted.
>
> That's the most illogical thing I've heard since -2197483648
>
> Oops, sorry, looks like an integer underflow may have happened. ;)
>
> Tell me though, if you anesthetize yourself and then someone cuts off
> your arm:
> a) Does it hurt?

    Depending on the quality of the anesthesia, maybe not.

> b) Do you still lose the arm?

    Yes.

> c) Would you have preferred it the other way around?

    I don't understand... Prefer not being anesthetize? Prefer being the one 
to cut the arm instead of not cutting it?

>> > Eh what? No, you seem to have misunderstood. The options are to avoid
>> > the insults even being said or to rebut them. Ignoring them is
>> > emphatically not an option, since silence implies assent. Or have you
>> > forgotten that part?
>>
>>     It's not forgotten, but disagreed.
>
> What?
>
> OK, time for another mindbender then.
>
> If you put a block weighing 6 newtons on a level frictionless surface,
> attached by a spring to a fixed point on that surface, what happens:
> a) if the block is left alone?

    Disclaimer: Physics isn't my strong point.

    My guess: Nothing.

> b) if a rightward force is applied steadily at the center of the left
> side of the block?

    My guess: The block accelerates to the right, assuming no other forces 
(e.g. gravity).

> c) if forces of equal magnitude are applied steadily at the centers of
> the left *and* right sides of the block, directly through the block in
> both cases?

    My guess: Nothing.

Here's my mindbender for you:

    This guy runs up to you and points at the sky and says "I see a flying 
spaghetti monster!" You look around and don't see anything that might match 
that description, and so you say "I don't see anything." The guy tells you 
"I'm telling you, I see it!"

    So you say "Ok", and go on living your life.

    What, if anything, did you agree to, upon saying "Ok"?

>> > I am starting to suspect, however, that people honestly believe that I
>> > believe what you are saying they believe I believe,
>>
>>     I'm glad.
>
> Why? I didn't actually say those things!

    I'm glad that you're starting to suspect that people honestly believe 
that you believe what I'm saying they believe you believe. In other words, 
I'm glad you're starting to believe what I'm telling you.

>>     Everyone's free to post in comp.*; even those you deem to be unable 
>> to
>> grasp the most basic rules of logic.
>
> You misunderstand me. It wasn't meant to be interpreted as "Who let
> those idiots into the mensa-only club?!"; it was meant to be
> interpreted as "What on earth did they come here hoping to
> accomplish?!".

    I guess they want to talk about comp.*. Specifically, I guess the people 
who post in comp.lang.java.programmer want to talk about the Java 
programming language.

>> Personally, I appreciate their
>> presence: even if they cannot grasp logic, as you state, they do seem to
>> know quite a bit about Java. When I ask Java questions here, someone 
>> usually
>> has an answer for me.
>
> An answer from someone whose reasoning capabilities are on that level
> is probably worse than no answer at all. What proportion of the answers
> you receive tend to work decently and additionally don't come with
> either side effects (in implementation) or some kind of lunacy (in the
> form of usenet literature) attached?

    I think I asked something like 5-7 questions here, but I only remember 
the contents (and thus the answers) of 3 of them. 2 of them were pedantic 
questions about the Java Language Specification, and they got answered 
clearly. 1 was a "I'm having problems with WebStart, here's a sample app. Do 
you guys have the same problem?" and they said "No.", thus confirming that 
the problem was with my particular system.

    So I've had 3 out of 3 good experiences here. I suspect all my questions 
got answered to my satisfaction, but I can't recall for sure.

>> >>     Well, that wasn't the intent.
>> >
>> > What was the intent of the "advice" to "just say OK" whenever anyone
>> > accused me of being wrong?
>> >
>> > I'm still waiting on that.
>>
>>     To help you in avoiding the responses you seemed to not want to 
>> receive.
>
> Yes, but at what price?

    Hmm, interesting question. If it were me in your situation, the cost 
would be zero, 'cause I don't really care about what people think of me, and 
I disagree that silence implies assent. It seems you do think silence 
implies assent, and that you don't want people see you as being submissive, 
so the cost may be non-zero for you.

>>     Another rule of thumb I usually use on Usenet is: If there are two 
>> (or
>> more) interpretations for a given message, and one of them makes you 
>> really
>> angry or upset, but the other one leaves you neutral or even happy, pick 
>> the
>> latter one. You'll end up having a happier life.
>
> That sounds to me like a recipe for disaster. The best-case scenario is
> being wide open to being the butt of someone's jokes and having
> voluntarily made yourself turnip-dumb enough tto actually like it. The
> worst-case scenario tends to involve scams and credit-card numbers...

    It works for me.

    - Oliver 

Twisted wrote:
> wesley.hall@gmail.com wrote:
> 
>>You should do stand-up, either that, or go and work for google, clearly
>>they have much to learn from you.
> 
> 
> If, as you claim, the top hit for "ant" isn't the dictionary definition
> or even remotely related but is instead for some obscure software that
> only a minuscule fraction as many people have even heard of, then
> Google clearly does have much to learn -- from *somebody*, anyway.
> 

That depends on whether most of the searches for "ant" are for the 
software or the insect. It is actually not unlikely that on Google if 
not in the wider world it is the software which dominates.

Mark Thornton

Twisted wrote:
> Andrew Thompson wrote:
> 
>>E.G. <http://www.physci.org/pc/jtest.jnlp>
> 
> 
> Sorry, I don't have any software on my system for interpreting .jnlp
> files, whatever those are. (And I *do* have software for the common and
> even many of the more obscure formats for images, archives, and the
> like, just to put that into some sort of perspective...)
> 

Why don't you try clicking on the link and see what happens? If you have 
  Java 1.4 or later then it should work.

In article <1164299262.033271.316460@h54g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
 <nebulous99@gmail.com> wrote:
>Bent C Dalager wrote:
>> I don't need to. I feel that it is self-evident that everyone does
>> something wrong occassionally.
>
>I feel that it is self-evident that *you* have an ulterior motive,
>besides trying to push some sort of generalized philosophical point
>that is.

Of course I have - I expect everyone has so all the time whether they
are aware of it or not.

The philosophical point is a tool I employ to try and delve into the
subject matter. My ulterior motive is along the lines of trying to
learn something new.

>This does of course depend on what is meant by "flawless". If it
>includes "acting in good faith" and "not knowingly doing something
>wrong", then yes, it would seem to apply. Obviously, if I know
>something is a bad idea I avoid doing it; and if I don't, my doing it
>isn't a failing on my part, unless I *should* have known, which leads
>to the whole question of "how should I have". More generally, I do the
>best with the information I have at the time; which necessarily
>includes some judicious pruning of decision trees. It is possible for a
>superior option to be pruned heuristically, but the consequences of not
>aggressively pruning include large amounts of time wasted on fruitless
>link-chasing, needlessly-in-depth research, or other activities, not to
>mention the possibility of actual adverse consequences from trying
>something dangerous.

If you eliminate the reasons/excuses/etc. from the above, does it
translate roughly to "I do make mistakes from time to time"? I do
accept that when mistakes are made, there are always reasons for them.

>This seems to require a motive. I'm curiously no longer certain that
>it's straightforward hostility; you seem to be angling for something
>else than just to call me a name or whatever. However, I don't get the
>impression that you have wholly benign intentions either.

My reasons in this case are largely selfish in nature, but can have
benign side effects.

Cheers
	Bent D
-- 
Bent Dalager - bcd@pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
                                    powered by emacs

In article <1164297094.566614.115370@e3g2000cwe.googlegroups.com>,
 <nebulous99@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>I have a web browser, but it's the bog-standard variety that
>understands .jpg, .gif, .png, .txt, .html, .shtml, .php, and
>directories, and a few others (notably .svg). I've never actually even
>*seen* a .jnlp file before today. (And I still haven't -- only two
>links to such files, up from a grand previous total of zero.)
>
>Why, what kind did you think I had?

Your reply led me to believe you might have either none at all, or
lynx.

Your web browser typically doesn't understand file extensions (.jpg,
..gif, etc.) so much as it understands MIME types. It then typically
uses the operating system to map those MIME types to suitable
executables unless the browser has built-in support for the MIME type
in question.

>I suppose this is some subtle suggestion that JREs come with a tool
>that recognizes the .jnlp format. If so, it's not a tool I've had
>occasion to use (or even investigate), obviously. (I would expect that,
>given a JRE plug-in, my browser does add .class and .jar to its
>repertoire. Which suggests that .jnlp could be some type of active
>content similar to an applet. If so, I'd definitely want to know
>whether it runs in the same type of sandbox before touching either URL
>with a ten-foot pole.)

If you have a modern OS with a modern browser and you have installed a
reasonably modern JRE in a standard manner, then JNLP files are
automatically handled correctly by your browser. You don't need to
know what they are, or which program is actually handling them, for
this to happen.

Cheers
	Bent D
-- 
Bent Dalager - bcd@pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
                                    powered by emacs

In article <1164297908.290539.164250@e3g2000cwe.googlegroups.com>,
 <nebulous99@gmail.com> wrote:
>Bent C Dalager wrote:
>
>By which you mean what? Whether sheer repetition *will* have some of
>the lesser intellects hereabout believing it? Whether you can actually
>eventually confuse *me* into believing it? Or at least baffle me long
>enough to slip a zinger by under my radar and unopposed? I wouldn't bet
>on it...

The working theory is: none of the above.

>Not *this* box. You must be thinking of Joe Blow's Windows XP SP1 box
>with full raw sockets and no firewall, or his Win98 box with wide-open
>NetBIOS hole, or Joe Inc.'s rack of NT/IIS servers all lubed up and
>ready to accept whatever prong someone wants to poke into them, most
>with outdated Symantec or McAfee products and nothing else in the way
>of protection software.

If you have a proper firewall set up, I don't see why you are at all
worried about what sort of services a new piece of software might
establish on your computer.

Is it a trojan you are worried about?

>> "Semi-serious" basically means "not a throw-away one-use program that
>> I just need to this thing right here right now".
>
>Meaning you won't use version control on "hello, world", but you might
>on a two-class pipsqueak that you rigged to automate picking your
>lottery numbers or some shit like that?

Yes.

>Looks like you draw the line at dropping that nuke when the toilet
>begins to look visibly grimy. ;)
>
>What do you use to recharge your laptop, a tokamak?

You appear to drastically overestimate the complexity of running a
version control system. You also seem oblivious to the benefits gained
by having one. The latter outweighs the former by several orders of
magnitude.

>That's what I was afraid of. It's been *my* experience that if you
>download any type of server software, install it, and do "pretty much
>nothing" to configure it, you've just hung out the welcome mat for
>Christ alone knows what. From which a firewall *might* save your bacon.
>
>Now maybe that's not the case with Subversion specifically, or you're
>talking about a local-only version control product that doesn't open
>any network ports, but you didn't actually say so, so ... :)

Well, it's been a while since I installed it. As I remember, I had to
take some steps to make the thing available over my LAN but the
details are long forgotten.

Cheers
	Bent D
-- 
Bent Dalager - bcd@pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
                                    powered by emacs

wesley.hall@gmail.com wrote:
> Twisted wrote:
> > Andrew Thompson wrote:
> > > E.G. <http://www.physci.org/pc/jtest.jnlp>
> >
> > Sorry, I don't have any software on my system for interpreting .jnlp
> > files
>
> Ahhh, I think I am beginning to see the problem...

That problem being what, that there are tools I actually don't have,
things I actually don't know or find unfamiliar, and stuff like that?

Live with it. I don't think you'll find that you or anyone else around
here is any more omniscient than I am.

Simon Brooke wrote:
> > And I thought some other people here were suggesting swatting flies
> > with bazookas. This is closer to disinfecting a dirty toilet with a
> > thermonuclear bomb.
>
> No, it's more like cleaning the toilet bowl with a brush rather than doing
> it with your fingers.

This is a one-developer, four-class, version 0.1 toilet however. Using
Eclipse is actually probably already overkill for it. :)

Oliver Wong wrote:
> <nebulous99@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1164297094.566614.115370@e3g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...
> > Bent C Dalager wrote:
> >> In article <1164288007.207992.244710@l12g2000cwl.googlegroups.com>,
> >> Twisted <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >Andrew Thompson wrote:
> >> >> E.G. <http://www.physci.org/pc/jtest.jnlp>
> >> >
> >> >Sorry, I don't have any software on my system for interpreting .jnlp
> >> >files, whatever those are. (And I *do* have software for the common and
> >> >even many of the more obscure formats for images, archives, and the
> >> >like, just to put that into some sort of perspective...)
> >>
> >> You actually don't have a web browser?
> >
> > I have a web browser, but it's the bog-standard variety that
> > understands .jpg, .gif, .png, .txt, .html, .shtml, .php, and
> > directories, and a few others (notably .svg).
>
>     Most webbrowsers don't actually understand php or shtml. Typically, when
> an URL ends with these extensions, they are actually serving HTML content.

Entirely beside the point. An *unfamiliar* file extension generally
means "little point in trying", since it usually leads to the save
as... dialog and no clue what to do with the resulting file, or else to
the "You are missing a required plugin" message (exact details
regarding the latter vary by browser) and no idea what plugin or where
it can be found or even whether one exists for that data type.

>     Well, we could tell you, but you might not take our word for it. Why not
> try googling for "jnlp"?

It's item #5,355,646 on my burgeoning things-to-do list; thanks.

Simon Brooke wrote:
> > If I'm running a server that gives direct access to the code, then it's
> > damn easy for someone to mess with it.
>
> And if you're behind a firewall, they can't, can they?

And if I'm not running such a server, they also can't. And if both,
they *surely* can't. ;)

> > As for "few hours", that sounds wildly optimistic to me, considering
> > the evident complexity.
>
> Ten minutes, more like it.
>
> apt-get install cvs

If I had the OS you seem to be assuming here, then I'd possibly have it
installed rather quickly that way. Actually figuring out how to
configure and use the darn thing, as a first-timer, would be another
matter, I'm sure.

> Eclipse isn't configurable as a client for CVS. Eclipse is a working client
> for CVS straight out of the box. There's no configuration to do, beyond
> pointing it at your server.

Hrm. So most of the complexity and work would be on the "setting up the
server" side of things. And any change to the procedure for working
with a source file that resulted on the client side.

Simon Brooke wrote:
> in message <1164288007.207992.244710@l12g2000cwl.googlegroups.com>, Twisted
> ('twisted0n3@gmail.com') wrote:
>
> > Andrew Thompson wrote:
> >> E.G. <http://www.physci.org/pc/jtest.jnlp>
> >
> > Sorry, I don't have any software on my system for interpreting .jnlp
> > files, whatever those are. (And I *do* have software for the common and
> > even many of the more obscure formats for images, archives, and the
> > like, just to put that into some sort of perspective...)
>
> Then you don't have Eclipse on your system.

What -- it interprets whatever .jnlp files are? I didn't know that. :P

Daniel Pitts wrote:
> You have proven to me that you make far too many assumptions without
> even a cursory amount of research to back it up.

You have proven to me that you're a judgmental prick. You seem unable
to avoid arguing against the person ("You make far too many ...") when
you disagree with something they said. The only "assumptions" I make
are the guesses we all make given that none of us are omniscient. If
something doesn't look promising we ignore it unless given reason to
think it might be useful after all. At least, those of us who aren't
gods do. Those here who think they are can go fornicate atop Mount Zeus
or whatever it is gods do and quit being arrogant pricks in Usenet
newsgroups. :)

I don't like people telling me that I'm some sort of idiot for not
either a) knowing something I can't very well have been *born* knowing
and that isn't part of a basic Western education or b) researching
in-depth every single unfamiliar thing that anyone ever happens to
mention in my earshot (I'd spend all my time researching and none doing
anything else, including eating or sleeping).

I need more information to decide what might be worth "researching" and
what isn't. Where that information is lacking, don't get mad at me or
call me names because I decide it is or isn't and you think I made the
wrong decision. If you have such a strong opinion that it isn't or is,
then MAKE SURE YOU MENTION INFORMATION THAT WOULD LEAD OTHERS
UNFAMILIAR WITH THE THING IN QUESTION TO DRAW THE SAME CONCLUSION! For
instance, if you're damn sure fizzledibs are useful to a person, unless
this is going to be self-evident to someone who hadn't heard of
fizzledibs an hour ago, don't simply drop the name "fizzledibs";
include a concise explanation of what these are including at least one
reason why that particular person might find them of interest. And
consider also, that if you're a fizzledib expert you might be overly
inclined to prescribe them as the solution to every problem; when you
have a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. Consider the
particular person's circumstances and decide whether they fall into the
(perhaps small) category of exceptions where fizzledibs *aren't*
useful, rather than just reflexively posting "Use fizzledibs! They're
great" in response to nearly everything and then, if asked "What are
fizzledibs?" or "Fizzledibs sound like some kind of X but I need Y
instead", "What kind of an idiot are you?".

Oliver Wong wrote:
> <nebulous99@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1164303197.726441.19280@j44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
> [...]
> > I am discussion situations like, for instance,
> >
> > Me: How do I get some foos to do bars?
> >
> > Other: Why don't you use baz instead?
> > -or-
> > Why do you want to get foos to do bars?
> > -or-
> > What is the resulting bar used for later on?
> > ... etc.
> >
> > As opposed to response questions like
> >
> > What version are you using?
> > Are the foos of the XYZFoo subclass or the base class?
> > Do the bars need to be fiddlefaddle, or will just ordinary ones do?
> > ...
> >
> > You can clearly see the difference. The former don't further a goal of
> > determining how I can get some foos to do bars; they do however further
> > a goal of questioning whether I even want to get foos to do bars, or
> > what I want the bars for. The latter, on the other hand, are plainly
> > relevant to narrowing down the specifics of my requirements and of the
> > exact tool set I have available with which to do the job, without
> > questioning my requirements themselves.
>
>     This is actually pretty standard on most comp.* newsgroups I've been to.

What -- insulting people is, by implying that the decisions they have
already made are stupid without (most often) even knowing much about
their situation and requirements (which they might learn by asking the
*other* sort of questions, but never do!)...

> And again, I recommend that you do answer questions of the form "Why don't
> you use baz instead?", "Why do you want to get foos to do bars?", and "What
> is the resulting bar used for later on?". Again, in my experience, those who
> do this are more likely to get the answers they want.

Even though these questions cannot possibly further their goal
directly. In other words, it's a form of payment, rather than something
directly connected with the task being performed.

Justify this system of "payment" please.

And in particular, justify why it resembles the practise of
psychologists and other headshrinks of ignoring what you said and
asking questions that are, at best, tangentially related while refusing
to actually acknowledge what you actually did say or answer the
questions *you* asked. I can see how that *might* be useful in therapy.
I don't see how it can *possibly* be useful in solving a technological
problem of any kind.

I mean, if I asked an electrician buddy of mine whether a room of a
certain purpose should have a 220V outlet or just some 110V ones, I'd
expect to get a straight answer, not the third degree in the form of
"Why? Are you remodeling? Why not do this instead?..." -- if I wanted
to go over my plans, my reasons for them, and alternatives to same I
would bring such topics up myself wouldn't I? The suggestion that I
probably shouldn't even be doing what I'm asking how to do is
condescending and rude!

>     I think it never occurs to those posters that the questions being posed
> of them might be some sort of trap. They just answer them, and then they get
> their own questions answered, and everybody is happy.

But *why* are those questions being asked? I can think of only three
reasons to ask those sorts of questions when Joe Schmoe asks something
here:
a) The asker honestly thinks Joe's barking up the wrong tree. If Joe's
fairly sure he's not, they should just tell him how to bark up that
tree, and leave it up to him to decide if a different tree is better --
if he hasn't already compared trees when deciding on his current
choice, which he actually probably has.
b) The asker is hoping to elicit proprietary information that they can
use somehow.
c) The asker is hoping to elicit information that can be used as
supporting evidence and citations in a subsequent public essay entitled
"Why Joe Schmoe is an idiot".

Of the three, a) is patronizing, since it suggests at least a suspicion
that Joe is asking the wrong question or doing the wrong thing, and the
other two are ulterior motives clearly unworthy of being supported by
Joe.

Joe didn't come here to have all of his previous design decisions
questioned; he came here to have a single question of his own answered.
Respect that.

>     The (paraphrasing here) "Obviously, a Google search for 'ant' wouldn't
> give me any results related to the Ant software in question" and "Well, if
> it does, then Google has a lot to learn from me." posts are pretty arrogant,
> IMHO.

"Paraphrasing" is putting it mildly. The logical guess as to the top
Google results for "ant" is that they'll be entomological in character.
Such a guess might be wrong in a specific instance, but for the general
class of one-word queries where the word has one very common usage and
at least one relatively obscure one, the guess that the top hits will
not relate to that obscure one is right 99.99% of the time, so it is
certainly the way for a betting man to lean.

And of course, if the top Google hit for "ant" is utterly irrelevant to
the meaning of 99.99% of real-world uses of the word, then yes, Google
has a problem. (But I never said it had a lot to learn *from me*, then,
did I?)

> Therefore, when I ask a question, probably only 5 to 10 people actually know
> the answer with good certainty.

In other words, it will vary with how esoteric the question is.

>     Chances are, these 10 people aren't reading the newsgroup during the
> same period that I'm making the post. Some of them may only read the
> newsgroup from work/school, and have gone home for the day, for example. In
> that case, I'd probably have to wait until the next day for them to come
> back, assuming they check the groups everyday.

That's statistically rather questionable. You seem to suppose that
they'd all read and post during the same time, so that you'd wait up to
a day and then get 10 answers in 10 minutes. It's far more likely that
they'd trickle in at roughly every two hours' interval in this
instance, because it's unlikely that there's any correlation between
when any one of the ten is online and when any other of the ten is
online.

You may be forgetting the international scope of the Internet. It's
always morning somewhere, evening somewhere else, etc...; if you post
your question at midnight in California, the first answer is likely to
be from some technology worker in Japan, where it's early evening and
someone might have just gotten home from work and be catching up on
internet stuff while the oven pre-heats; if you post it at noon, it
might come from a local who's on lunch break almost immediately; and so
forth.

> Personally, I tend to check
> the groups (but don't bother to read every single message in them) every
> weekday, but I don't access them on the weekends. Others may have different
> access patterns. This is how I arrived at the 2-3 day figure for "busy"
> newsgroups, and "7 days or more" for the less busy ones.

That would work, if everyone who knew anything followed the same
schedule you do (and lived in the same time zone). :)

> I think the problem here is that you consider the
> statement "the immediate response is clearly and strongly disapproving" to
> be objectively true, whereas I consider it to be subjectively true at best,
> and false at worst.

You *are* mad, then. One of them said "What are the advantages of doing
it THAT way?!" in incredulity, or something like that, quite early in
this thread. I think the opinion implied is damned clear and
unambiguous, and it *isn't* brimming over with praise at my ingenuity
either. If you can possibly view that one as complimentary or even as
neutral, then your perceptions are way too twisted to be of any use to
me in making decisions. :P

>     Without getting too metaphysical, I'm saying there may be a difference
> between reality and your perception of reality.

Even if there is, it's immaterial; since I have only the latter on
which to base my actions, the remark you made is completely useless.
It's not as if my perceptions aren't as accurate as I can make them,
after all.

> > That's a damned charitable interpretation of even the early returns,
> > nevermind some of the later ones, and you know it.
>
>     I disagree.

See above.

> > Well, there you go. I guess I'm absolved of guilt then, since that's
> > also what I did. :P Not that it helps me much.
>
>     Well, guilt... it's a loaded word. As I've said before, I don't think
> this has anything to do with right or wrong. Did you do something "wrong"?
> The word "wrong" is meaningless in this context. I think it has more to do
> with cause and effect. There was an effect. Did your post participate in the
> cause that effect? Yes.

No. It didn't. Not in the way you are implying. Keep in mind that the
"effect" is hostile behavior, which therefore makes it a punishment,
which therefore makes the "cause" something for which the punishers
feel there is "guilt" or "blame" to be assigned. *You* may not feel
there is any to be assigned, but this isn't about what *you* feel, it
is about what *they* feel and how to correct their misconceptions.

For misperceptions they were, seeing as I am clearly being punished
despite having acted in good faith and without ever harboring any
malicious intent, nor acted irresponsibly in a way that foreseeably
increases the risk of harm to others without their consent. Clearly,
punishing behavior under the conditions described is ipso facto unjust,
and equally clearly, responding with any kind of acceptance to it is to
become part of the same injustice -- ironically, becoming guilty of
something at that time.

>     You drew attention to people no saying anything about obtaining ant,
> why? Is it because you wanted to know how to obtain ant?

It was because I found their behavior curious. Which fact I'm sure I'd
mentioned before.

>     I guess I was wrong about people not liking offtopic posts then.

I haven't made any offtopic posts. Every post that I have made here
that started a new thread involved Java programming; whereas every post
that did not responded to the content of the post being followed-up. If
you can find *one* counterexample (a thread starter by me that doesn't
mention Java, or a followup by me that is completely disconnected from
the parent) then I will be damned surprised.

>     But again, I might be wrong about that. I've been wrong about guessing
> what other people on this group think before.

Apparently, everyone has. Certainly, people have repeatedly and
incorrectly thought that I was disparaging something merely because I
didn't use it first and ask questions later; and I admit I didn't
anticipate this firestorm of controversy would erupt over one lousy
icon(!)...

> > Unless, of course, you actually meant that I should acquiesce *falsely*
> > (i.e. the first thing, acquiesce, without the second, consider my
> > judgment to be inferior).
> >
> > Dishonesty seems like it may be a method of fairly early resort for
> > problem-solving for you, doesn't it?
>
>     Not in my opinion.

What would you call it, then?

>     Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if it might have happened before an
> audience. I can easily imagine Einstein giving a lecture on relativity
> before an assembly of physicists, and someone standing up and shouting (in
> German) "This is all nonsense!" to which Einstein might have replied "Ok, I
> respect your freedom to disagree with me. If you do not wish to hear my
> theories, feel free to leave the lecture hall, but there are 200 other
> scientists here who seem to be interested in hearing about it, so for their
> benefit, I'd like to continue my explanation uninterrupted." And then he
> goes on, doing what he was doing before the interruption, as if nothing had
> happened.

That is quite different from what you were originally suggesting -- for
one thing it makes it quite clear that Einstein doesn't agree with the
claim that it's "all nonsense". For another, a closer comparison would
be with someone actually publicly calling Einstein himself an idiot,
rather than just disparaging his theories.

> > But agreeing to disagree takes two, like
> > any other sort of agreeing.
>
>     I disagree.

What planet are you from? :P

> > If one side stubbornly refuses to concede a
> > loss or even a draw, then the other side has to either concede a loss
> > or keep fighting.
>
>     Again, disagreed.

OK, I take that back. What *universe* are you from? Because on *any*
planet in *this* one, game theory and other basic truths of mathematics
must hold invariant, and one of the commonest rules of games is that if
you walk away from an unfinished game other than in an agreed draw, it
constitutes a forfeit. Also, in *this* universe, if two soldiers in
foxholes are popping up and spraying machine-gun fire at one another,
and then (without a negotiated cease-fire) one of them just gets up and
starts walking off, he's liable to get a bullet in his back.

>     I don't think there's anything to concede. You claim that you think I'm
> dumb. I fully believe that you think I'm dumb. And I have no problem with
> that, because I don't really care what you think of me. I personally I don't
> think I'm dumb. And I don't think there's any conflict with you think I'm
> dumb and me thinking I'm not dumb. Just like there'd be no conflict if I
> think vanilla tastes better than chocolate, and you think chocolate tastes
> better than vanilla. Different people think different things.

But surely you draw the line where someone doesn't just think you're
dumb, but starts trying to convince everyone else that as well? Then
you just have to intervene, either to stop him or to provide their
audience with an alternative theory and some evidence to support it and
refute your opponent's.

> > Tell me though, if you anesthetize yourself and then someone cuts off
> > your arm:
> > a) Does it hurt?
>
>     Depending on the quality of the anesthesia, maybe not.
>
> > b) Do you still lose the arm?
>
>     Yes.
>
> > c) Would you have preferred it the other way around?
>
>     I don't understand... Prefer not being anesthetize? Prefer being the one
> to cut the arm instead of not cutting it?

You seem to misunderstand once again. If you numb yourself to pain, you
may not feel an injury, but it has still occurred. On the other hand,
if you do not numb yourself, you might react to injury by snatching
your arm back, thereby possibly saving the arm. So you can have pain
and keep the arm, or not have pain and have a much greater risk of
losing the arm. Curiously, it sounds like you'd prefer the latter.

(There is, in fact, a rare medical condition that can render a person
impervious to pain. Such people become very injury- and accident-prone,
and often have shorter lifespans because of it. Your
numb-it-and-forget-it attitude seems to indicate very short-term
thinking.)

> > If you put a block weighing 6 newtons on a level frictionless surface,
> > attached by a spring to a fixed point on that surface, what happens:
> > a) if the block is left alone?
>
>     Disclaimer: Physics isn't my strong point.
>
>     My guess: Nothing.

Yes. It should sit at the attachment point.

> > b) if a rightward force is applied steadily at the center of the left
> > side of the block?
>
>     My guess: The block accelerates to the right, assuming no other forces
> (e.g. gravity).

With the spring, it should actually end up stable at an equilibrium
position to the right of center.

> > c) if forces of equal magnitude are applied steadily at the centers of
> > the left *and* right sides of the block, directly through the block in
> > both cases?
>
>     My guess: Nothing.

Yes, again it will sit at the attachment point.

Point being, some people started trying to push other peoples' opinion
of me in one direction. Without me (or someone) maintaining an equal
and opposite force, the equilibrium will shift, and not in a direction
I want. (How much it will shift obviously depends on various things --
how prone to persuasion their audience is, how convincing the jerkwads
pushing them are ... nonetheless, these don't matter, since I can't
safely assume the result to be zero, and whatever it is, my own
opposite push will be affected in the same way.)

> Here's my mindbender for you:
>
>     This guy runs up to you and points at the sky and says "I see a flying
> spaghetti monster!" You look around and don't see anything that might match
> that description, and so you say "I don't see anything." The guy tells you
> "I'm telling you, I see it!"
>
>     So you say "Ok", and go on living your life.
>
>     What, if anything, did you agree to, upon saying "Ok"?

Apparently, that they saw it?

If you have a point, now is the time.

> >> > I am starting to suspect, however, that people honestly believe that I
> >> > believe what you are saying they believe I believe,
> >>
> >>     I'm glad.
> >
> > Why? I didn't actually say those things!
>
>     I'm glad that you're starting to suspect that people honestly believe
> that you believe what I'm saying they believe you believe. In other words,
> I'm glad you're starting to believe what I'm telling you.

That isn't very useful. How do I convince people that what I actually
say I believe, but thinking I believe a random bunch of other things is
liable to mean being mistaken? For that matter, why are they inventing
various beliefs to attribute to me to begin with?

> > You misunderstand me. It wasn't meant to be interpreted as "Who let
> > those idiots into the mensa-only club?!"; it was meant to be
> > interpreted as "What on earth did they come here hoping to
> > accomplish?!".
>
>     I guess they want to talk about comp.*. Specifically, I guess the people
> who post in comp.lang.java.programmer want to talk about the Java
> programming language.

Yes, but the logic-deficient personages in question posting here seems
like a tribe of pygmies asking for (or worse, actually giving)
game-playing tips in rec.games.basketball.

>     I think I asked something like 5-7 questions here, but I only remember
> the contents (and thus the answers) of 3 of them. 2 of them were pedantic
> questions about the Java Language Specification, and they got answered
> clearly.

There's always at least one awkward case where you need a "lawyer" to
tell you what the correct behavior is (and you can't go by the
compiler's behavior, since it might actually be a case of unspecified
behavior), eh?

>     So I've had 3 out of 3 good experiences here. I suspect all my questions
> got answered to my satisfaction, but I can't recall for sure.

There's "answered to your satisfaction", and then there's "whether any
other baggage or cruft came along for the ride with those answers".

This group has a better track record than comp.text.tex, I'll grant you
-- there, every other person seems to be trying to sell something
(usually a book), and I've seen a wide variety of incomplete,
inapplicable, or outright wrong answers get posted in response to n00b
questions (as generally indicated when the n00b does only and exactly
what someone suggests and it blows up in their face, and then they post
back to relate the gory details). Some of those cases seem to have
resulted from the answer-poster assuming the n00b had extra knowledge
that the n00b didn't actually have (so, lesson one: don't assume a n00b
knows *anything* they didn't say or show they know); one case involved
some construct that had to be wrapped in something to work, but whoever
posted it neglected to mention that fact; the n00b naturally just
pasted the construct in without doing anything else and detonated his
project into the next century, then logged on and detonated the
newsgroup. It took weeks for that particular thread to die and it ended
up with over 500 postings...other cases have looked like they could
have been more intentional, rather than stemming simply from dubious
assumptions about someone's state of knowledge. Perhaps the better to
motivate those book sales...

Here, OTOH, the questions seem to generate a straight answer within a
few hours, but sidecars full of judgmental crap and riders full of
rambunctious rumblings have definitely come attached at times.

> > Yes, but at what price?
>
>     Hmm, interesting question. If it were me in your situation, the cost
> would be zero, 'cause I don't really care about what people think of me, and
> I disagree that silence implies assent.

You fail to appreciate a certain problem there -- *you* not agreeing
that silence implies assent doesn't change the minds of the people who
think it *does*, and take your silence when accused of idiocy (or
whatever) as tantamount to an admission of guilt. You may well not care
what the people calling you an idiot think, but you're making it damn
easy for them to convince everyone else that you are by letting them
try unopposed!

Mark Thornton wrote:
> That depends on whether most of the searches for "ant" are for the
> software or the insect. It is actually not unlikely that on Google if
> not in the wider world it is the software which dominates.

Google *is* the wider world -- or at least, it's supposed to be. For a
programming-related search engine you'd be correct, but for a
general-purpose one?

Mark Thornton wrote:
> Twisted wrote:
> > Andrew Thompson wrote:
> >
> >>E.G. <http://www.physci.org/pc/jtest.jnlp>
> >
> >
> > Sorry, I don't have any software on my system for interpreting .jnlp
> > files, whatever those are. (And I *do* have software for the common and
> > even many of the more obscure formats for images, archives, and the
> > like, just to put that into some sort of perspective...)
>
> Why don't you try clicking on the link and see what happens? If you have
>   Java 1.4 or later then it should work.

So it *is* active content, of an unfamiliar new kind, therefore with
unfamiliar new security issues I'd best find out about *before*
clicking any such link...

Bent C Dalager wrote:
> The philosophical point is a tool I employ to try and delve into the
> subject matter. My ulterior motive is along the lines of trying to
> learn something new.

Unless it's something new about Java programming, learn it someplace
else. I did not come here to be psychoanalyzed. (Funny that I've had
occasion to say so twice in the past 24 hours here!)

> If you eliminate the reasons/excuses/etc. from the above, does it
> translate roughly to "I do make mistakes from time to time"? I do
> accept that when mistakes are made, there are always reasons for them.

It translates to "Whatever I do, there is never an occasion where I am
at fault". Fault requires that I either knew better, or should have
known better, but the former doesn't occur and in case of the latter,
the blame actually lies with whoever forgot to tell me whatever it is
they think I should have known anyway.

I came here to ask a couple simple questions. I did not come here to
have my worth as a programmer, a human being, or whatever else judged;
regardless of which, any guilty verdict is ipso facto wrong anyways. :P

> My reasons in this case are largely selfish in nature, but can have
> benign side effects.

Or malign side effects? You don't say (that they will or that they
won't).

> I mean, if I asked an electrician buddy of mine whether a room of a
> certain purpose should have a 220V outlet or just some 110V ones, I'd
> expect to get a straight answer, not the third degree in the form of
> "Why? Are you remodeling? Why not do this instead?..."

What about when, before your electrician buddy had even had time to
answer you tell him... "Doesn't matter, I found some old car batteries
in the garage. I managed to wire them all up together and hobbled
together a working circuit, thanks anyway".

Presumably YOU would get all defensive when your qualified and
experienced friend told you that there might be some long term draw
backs to your solution and suggested a better solution, that, even
though there was slightly more upfront work involved, would serve you
far better in the long term.

Personally, I would listen to the advice of someone who is obviously
more familier with the subject that I am, come to the conclusion that
they were probably right and ask them for some information on where I
might be able to learn more about the proper solution so as not to
publically embarrass myself in future. Just some simple references to
appropriate literature (which I may not understand at first but would
trust was relevant, based on their recommendation). I wouldn't expect
them to explain every thing to me before I considered looking things up
for myself, because I would accept that they had things to do of their
own, and it was charitable of them even to suggest a research
direction, when they would usually charge a fee for their knowledge.

Eventually, in time, *I* would reach a point where I was able to make
these descisions for myself and implement high quality solutions.
Perhaps even reaching a point where I might find gainful employment as
an electrician.

You on the other hand, would continue with your car battery solution,
until you plugged in too many appliances, the whole system shorts out
and you are left with no understanding of how to resolve the issue
properly....

Bent C Dalager wrote:
> Your web browser typically doesn't understand file extensions (.jpg,
> .gif, etc.) so much as it understands MIME types. It then typically
> uses the operating system to map those MIME types to suitable
> executables unless the browser has built-in support for the MIME type
> in question.

Well, it has to fall back on something in the (too-common) case the
server provides no Content-Type: header. Regardless of which, the cue
for a human as to what kind of file to expect is the file extension,
and it's a human who decides what links are worth following and what
links aren't. An unfamiliar extension tends to mean an unfamiliar
content type, which tends to mean a missing-plugin message or save-as
and then a file they haven't the tools to use. Therefore, an unfamiliar
extension tends to mean the link is not clicked, and that decision is
not one you can fault unless there was a lot of information next to the
link that would mean otherwise.

> If you have a modern OS with a modern browser and you have installed a
> reasonably modern JRE in a standard manner, then JNLP files are
> automatically handled correctly by your browser. You don't need to
> know what they are, or which program is actually handling them, for
> this to happen.

On the other hand, you might *want* to know, and *before* clicking
anything, unless you just don't give a crap what your box gets infested
with. :)

Bent C Dalager wrote:
> You appear to drastically overestimate the complexity of running a
> version control system.

I don't think I'm drastically overestimating the complexity of
installing, configuring, and using one for the first time as a complete
n00b.

> Well, it's been a while since I installed it. As I remember, I had to
> take some steps to make the thing available over my LAN but the
> details are long forgotten.

Those would not, presumably, matter for a single-computer single-user
setup anyway.

I would just stick with Eclipse.

Nasser Alhawash

Thomas Kellerer wrote:
> Twisted wrote on 21.11.2006 15:27:
> > Thomas Kellerer wrote:
> >> Hmm. Netbeans does that automatically for me. I have all my resource in my Java
> >> source directory (gif, properties, xml and txt files).
> >
> > Beans, net or otherwise, are outside my scope at least right now.
> > 
> 
> NetBeans is an IDE just like Eclipse...

"Chris Smith" <cdsmith@twu.net> wrote in message 
news:MPG.1fcba3d6e04a0815989761@news.altopia.net...
> Twisted <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Now you're ust being silly.  Are you intending to put
>> > - properties files
>> > - help text
>> > - localization data
>> > - any of many other resources..
>> > ..'stitched in' to the code?
>>
>> If it gets complex enough to involve such, then there will be separate
>> files for some of those, and I'll have to worry about how to get a user
>> directory in a system-independent way to put the properties files in,
>> and how to get the app's directory to look for help and non-English
>> localizations in.
>
> Actually, getResource is exactly the solution to everything you are
> mentioning.  Nothing is stored in some directory on some disk somewhere.
> Everything is stored in the same JAR file with all of your code; one
> file that you can distribute around that contains the whole application.
> All this, and you don't have to do kludgy things like build images into
> the source code of your classes.
>
> (By the way, if exceptions should never happen, as is the case when
> using getResource on a resource that's packaged in a JAR file with your
> application, then it's pretty trivial to add
>
>    try
>    {
>        ...
>    }
>    catch (SomeException e)
>    {
>        throw new RuntimeException(e);
>    }
>
> No information is lost, and you don't have to write any complex error
> reporting code or anything like that.  Just be careful that you don't
> catch some exceptions indicating real plausible problems like this.)

Not only that, but it is much easier to localize this way, should that 
become a requirement. Putting resources into the code itself is what we've 
been trying to get away from for all these years. That's why we have rc 
files, resource bundles, and so on. 

"Twisted" <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1164227062.421515.90960@j44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Oliver Wong wrote:
>>     More explicitly, beans and NetBeans are not the same thing.
>
> Well, judging by the name, NetBeans are beans *with internet added!* or
> something of the sort. :) (Kind of the way half the current US patent
> applications are some preexisting business model *with internet added!*
> ...)

Don't let the name mislead you. The name NetBeans doesn't mean anything as 
far as I can tell. They were just trying to ride the coattails of the 
buzzwords that were flying when NetBeans were first created. It's just an 
IDE, like Eclipse. 

>I find the phenomenon of topic drift curious. There seems to be a
> recurrent pattern in this group in which a person creates an initial
> topic of some Java related sort or another and the topic quickly drifts
> to criticism and "bashing" of the person that started the thread.

I think people are put off by your rapid shift to a home-grown solution, 
when there is a very good, standard, and commonly used solution available. 
You seem to be looking for reasons not to use it. I can understand the "not 
invented here" syndrome, but it really isn't helpful in this case.

The technique suggested by the posters here makes packaging, localization, 
re-branding, and maintenance quite simple. Someone (familiar with Java) who 
inherits your code will immediately recognize the tried and true design 
pattern. Keeping resources separate from the code makes it easier for third 
party vendors (or your graphics art department) to contribute to the 
product. Of course, that's all a moot point if you're a one-man shop. 

Karl Uppiano wrote:
> >I find the phenomenon of topic drift curious. There seems to be a
> > recurrent pattern in this group in which a person creates an initial
> > topic of some Java related sort or another and the topic quickly drifts
> > to criticism and "bashing" of the person that started the thread.
>
> I think people are put off by your rapid shift to a home-grown solution,
> when there is a very good, standard, and commonly used solution available.

A shift prompted by finding reference to it with Google before finding
reference to the other solution. If (as does in fact seem to be the
case) the latter is the standard one, this is rather odd, but I'd
suggest you take it up with Google, not with me.

> You seem to be looking for reasons not to use it. I can understand the "not
> invented here" syndrome, but it really isn't helpful in this case.

Given that the method currently being used wasn't "invented here"
either, that is clearly not what's going on.

Thing is, people didn't merely mention the other solution. They
lambasted me for not using it to begin with (e.g. "Why the hell are you
doing it THAT way?!" or words to that effect, fairly early in this
thread). And that, of course, means that now I must defend my original
choice; someone asked "why the hell", and I clearly look foolish if I
don't answer or I instantly change my mind, so instead I must explain
precisely why the hell. And I've mentioned all of the following:
* That that was the method I discovered first through the research I've
since been accused of never doing;
* That for such a small and simple case it has no particular
disadvantages, and may have slight advantages, regardless of the
general case;
* That certain assumptions they had made regarding what build tools I
was using and what I was familiar with were not actually true...
Unfortunately, nothing satisfies them! I still don't fathom how or
*why* it has blown up into a huge controversy. Apparently, some people
simply can't rest until they've proven something -- and it's created a
situation in which I have little choice but to not rest until I've
*dis*proven it, given that the "something" amounts to "Twisted is a
fool"!

> Of course, that's all a moot point if you're a one-man shop.

:)

This is definitely the longest discussion I've taken part in, and as
some other posters have said, by this point it's almost purely for
entertainment.

Twisted, stop flattering yourself. Nobody has pulled any dirty tricks
with Google Groups to limit your postings. I've been bitten by this
limit in the past when involved in very heated discussions in political
newsgroups. (You think this discussion is a flamewar,  you should see
some of those!) Making threats over the internet just makes you look
like a buffoon. Especially when you make remarks like "don't expect
your computer or internet connection to last till the weekend". That
one made me laugh out loud!

> It is rude to post disingenuous caricatures of a person to a public newsgroup. Don't do it again.
Oh, please. Is this another veiled threat? Don't make me laugh. It was
a perfectly reasonable comparison to the current debate (which really
ended long ago).

Are you still so pissed about everyone's disagreement about your
ass-backwards approach that you have to continue blasting any new
advice you are given? It's an established way of solving a common
problem (See design patterns). There's no new ground-breaking discovery
to be made here; _especially_ not your method of doing things. A Java
source file should be that, the source of a Java class. Not some
bizarrely-encoded image icon. If the String class weren't final, would
you advocate creating String subclasses for each string literal you
want to use in your application?

And by the way, don't bother using smiley emoticons when it's perfectly
clear that your posts are inflammatory and not in a joking tone. Also,
nobody thinks you are witty by using Capitalized Phrases(tm), and it
just makes you look like more of a fool.

I've never seen anybody in such denial about a flawed approach and
never seen anybody reject so much advice from so many experienced
posters who initially responded to your message with the intention to
help. You see it as an attack on your methodology, but it is more
experienced developers (by your own admission, calling yourself a
newbie) trying to steer you in the right direction. Instead you decided
to take it as a "challenge" from the "alpha male" (a really stupid
analogy by the way).

But by all means, Twisted. Post and flame on. This whole conversation
is a gem. Some great highlights:

* Software only does what its name implies
* Google is flawed because it doesn't return results that you think it
should
* You are a mighty hacker and will disable the computer and internet
connection of anyone who dares censor you in a public unmoderated forum
* Standardized build tools like Ant are unreasonably complicated to
learn and have no use in small projects.

One remark though on the Google issue - Google is a search engine and
they catalog what is out on the Web. When somebody runs a search, i.e.
"ant", it's going to return more relevant results first. In this case,
relevancy means its popularity, how many pages link to it, etc. It
doesn't just "know" that there is a more mainstream use of the word
"ant" and return results for that instead. There is more "buzz" on the
Internet about Ant, so that's what Google finds. If you don't like it,
you'll just have to deal with it - Ant is a hugely popular tool and
isn't going away anytime soon.

You mentioned before that you don't have the desire to be a
professional software developer. Thank God for that; I'd be miserable
if I had someone as stubborn and unreasonable as you on a project team.

-- 
jpa

nebulous99@gmail.com wrote:
> Mark Thornton wrote:
> 
>>That depends on whether most of the searches for "ant" are for the
>>software or the insect. It is actually not unlikely that on Google if
>>not in the wider world it is the software which dominates.
> 
> 
> Google *is* the wider world -- or at least, it's supposed to be. For a
> programming-related search engine you'd be correct, but for a
> general-purpose one?
> 

It reflects the ONLINE world. There are seemingly far more online 
references to the ANT software than references to insects.

nebulous99@gmail.com wrote:
> Mark Thornton wrote:
> 
>>Twisted wrote:
>>
>>>Andrew Thompson wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>E.G. <http://www.physci.org/pc/jtest.jnlp>
>>>
>>>
>>>Sorry, I don't have any software on my system for interpreting .jnlp
>>>files, whatever those are. (And I *do* have software for the common and
>>>even many of the more obscure formats for images, archives, and the
>>>like, just to put that into some sort of perspective...)
>>
>>Why don't you try clicking on the link and see what happens? If you have
>>  Java 1.4 or later then it should work.
> 
> 
> So it *is* active content, of an unfamiliar new kind, therefore with
> unfamiliar new security issues I'd best find out about *before*
> clicking any such link...
> 

Certainly and Google will soon lead you to everything you need to know 
and more. Your browser should also give warnings if the link leads to 
anything that might actually be dangerous. In the case of WebStart, if 
the application wants permission to do anything risky you will get a 
warning message and have the opportunity to accept or reject it. In 
addition the code has to be signed if such permission is required.

Once you are satisfied that it is secure, all you have to do is click on 
the link.

Mark Thornton

Joe Attardi wrote:
> Twisted, stop flattering yourself.
[snip various things, including an insult]

And why, pray tell, should I believe a word you say, in light of the
fact that you have long since assumed an adversarial stance?

> Are you still so pissed about everyone's disagreement about [insults deleted]

The only thing I'm "pissed about" is a certain fairly prevalent, very
judgmental attitude I've noticed. The sort that responds to someone's
honest work and problem-solving efforts with scorn and derision,
forcing them to speak up in their own defense, only to respond to
*that* in the same manner.

The sort that indicates that the people doing it have very insecure
egos and can only feel good about themselves when they're kicking some
other guy around or finding some reason to feel superior or something.

[Snip various rhetorical questions and assorted nonsense]

> And by the way, don't bother using smiley emoticons when it's perfectly
> clear that your posts are inflammatory and not in a joking tone.

My posts are nothing of the sort. It is your posts, liberally sprinkled
with insults and belittling language, that are inflammatory here, yours
and those of the others like you. Mine have been calm and rational
almost to a fault, where perhaps screaming and frothing at the mouth
would have been both understandable and, perhaps, more effective, since
then I'd be communicating in a language I know for certain you
understand instead of one I merely hope you do.

> I've never seen anybody in such denial about a flawed approach...

As long as you continue to accuse me of "flawed" anything, you aren't
going to convince me of anything, because I will reject everything you
say and consider it a lie. The minute you tell the other person in a
debate what's wrong with them, you've lost any chance to convince them
of anything; it's stopped being a debate and become an argument, and
they cannot now give any ground, or even be perceived as giving any
ground, because now there isn't a common search for the truth, but a
contest; now there isn't discovery, but winners and losers, and nobody
likes to lose.

Once you attack someone, you force them to entrench their position and
in a place like this, you will never make them give any ground; not
with arguments, pleading, namecalling, or even dirty tricks.

If you had wanted to make some constructive suggestions to me, then you
should have done so and done nothing else. Now it is too late. Since it
is clear that you dislike me and wish to cause me problems and pain, I
cannot trust a word you say, since doing something you suggest may well
simply help you accomplish that particular goal and help me accomplish
nothing. You would have been smarter to conceal your goals, given what
they appear to be, and tried to trick me then, rather than blatantly
insult me; you would have been wiser to have had different goals from
the outset.

> and never seen anybody reject so much advice from so many experienced
> posters who initially responded to your message with the intention to
> help.

I didn't reject any advice from people whose intention was to help. I
did not accept it unconditionally and unquestioningly either, which
some people appear to have misinterpreted, but I did not reject it. I
do reject anything said by someone whose attitude even remotely
resembles yours, though. Perhaps there is a lesson in that for you.

> You see it as an attack on your methodology, but it is more
> experienced developers (by your own admission, calling yourself a
> newbie) trying to steer you in the right direction.

"You're an idiot; give me the wheel" isn't "trying to steer me in the
right direction", it's "pissing me off and convincing me not to trust a
word you say". And that "you're an idiot" attitude oozed out of every
pore of some of the earliest responses I got. I don't respond well to
patronizing posts or condescending or derisive ones either, as you have
probably figured out by now. Why you persist in making them after
they've proven ineffective is a mystery to me.

> Instead you decided to take it as a "challenge" from the "alpha male" [insult deleted]

What I took as a challenge was the hostile tone I received. It wasn't
exactly hard to interpret it correctly. When someone says "You don't do
it that way, dummy" it's fairly clear that they are trying to assert a
dominant position. When someone's response to your questioning them
instead of jumping when they say "frog" is to call you names, it's
become damned obvious.

> * Software only does what its name implies

I never said that; you did, just now. I did say that if someone has
only the name on which to base a guess, and that guess doesn't suggest
it would be of use to them, then it is unlikely that they will use it;
but that is a completely different statement than the ludicrous one you
falsely attribute to me.

> * Google is flawed because it doesn't return results that you think it
> should

I didn't say that, either. I said Google is flawed if there exists a
query term for which it doesn't return the most common usages as the
bulk of the first page of hits. People googling for hoofbeats want
horses more often than they want zebras, so I don't think there can be
any disagreement with that statement, but that makes it useless for
framing me for the high crime of idiocy, so again you're forced to
invent something vaguely similar but wrong and then attribute it
falsely to me. But I don't believe for one second that I'm some sort of
supremely qualified person to decide what google should do; just that I
know what its purpose is and what those who built it intended it to do.

> * You are a mighty hacker and will disable the computer and internet
> connection of anyone who dares censor you in a public unmoderated forum

I do reserve the right to respond in kind to anyone who uses
underhanded tactics. In particular, if someone is going to take my
posts to this unmoderated newsgroup and moderate them, I have no qualms
about doing it right back to their posts.

> * Standardized build tools like Ant are unreasonably complicated to
> learn and have no use in small projects.

I never claimed that, either. I did claim that if someone unfamiliar
with a tool is working on a quite small project that has not needed
such a tool, then taking time out to download, configure, and learn the
new tool is not necessarily justified. I *would* go so far as to say
that doing so *purely* to conform to the expectations of some bunch of
usenetters is in fact *not* justified.

> One remark though on the Google issue - Google is a search engine and
> they catalog what is out on the Web. When somebody runs a search, i.e.
> "ant", it's going to return more relevant results first.

That is the theory; the practise is apparently quite different,
although why some people think that's somehow *my* fault, I don't know.

> You mentioned before that you don't have the desire to be a
> professional software developer. Thank God for that; I'd be miserable
> if I had someone as stubborn and unreasonable as you on a project team.

I am only "stubborn and unreasonable" to people like you. Perhaps you
should ponder why. (I suggest this, because I know you won't have
bothered to actually read and understand the part of this post, near
the top, where I actually *told* you why.)

Joe Attardi wrote:
> You mentioned before that you don't have the desire to be a
> professional software developer. Thank God for that; I'd be miserable
> if I had someone as stubborn and unreasonable as you on a project team.

P.S.: if I do at some time in the future become a professional software
developer, you can breathe easy knowing that I'll be sure to stay five
thousand *miles* away from any project team with anyone like *you*.

> Mine have been calm and rational almost to a fault
Oh?
>> I TOLD YOU NEVER TO FUCKING DO THAT EVER AGAIN!! I
>> ALSO TOLD YOU THAT I DO NOT ***EVER*** WANT TO SEE ANY MESSAGE
>> REJECTING ANY POSTING OF MINE TO AN UNMODERATED USENET GROUP ***EVER***
>> ***AGAIN***!!! OBVIOUSLY YOU DID NOT FUCKING LISTEN!!! THAT MEANS
>> WAR!!! I WILL TRACK YOU DOWN AND ENSURE YOU DO NOT BOTHER ME AGAIN. DO
>> NOT EXPECT YOUR COMPUTER OR NETWORK ACCESS TO SURVIVE THE WEEK ASSHOLE.
Easy there, killer.


At this point, the issue isn't even your approach to the original
problem, it's your outright refusal to consider any advice that's been
given to you. Of course, you don't see it as advice, because we are all
just a bunch of meanies because we don't think your approach is the
best thing ever.

Of course by this point, nothing I say is going to change your mind.
You are firmly locked into the mindset that everyone is just out to get
you.

On Nov 25, 4:39 am, "Twisted" <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote:
> P.S.: if I do at some time in the future become a professional software
> developer, you can breathe easy knowing that I'll be sure to stay five
> thousand *miles* away from any project team with anyone like *you*.

Why is that? Because I insist on sticking to practices that have been
long-established as the best way to do things?
Because I don't consider another approach unless there is a very good
and convincing justification?

Here's the thing - you have failed to show that your novel approach has
any advantage over the classloader method. The only advantage it seems
to have is that it excuses you from learning any new development tools.
Do you realize that all the energy you've spent vehemently disagreeing
with everybody here could have been spent learning Ant? But that won't
matter to you, because you'd rather keep up the fight here.

What exactly are you trying to prove? And this time maybe you can
respond to all my questions instead of 'snipping' them.

-- 
jpa

In article <1164422791.905791.216350@45g2000cws.googlegroups.com>,
 <nebulous99@gmail.com> wrote:
>Bent C Dalager wrote:
>> Your web browser typically doesn't understand file extensions (.jpg,
>> .gif, etc.) so much as it understands MIME types. It then typically
>> uses the operating system to map those MIME types to suitable
>> executables unless the browser has built-in support for the MIME type
>> in question.
>
>Well, it has to fall back on something in the (too-common) case the
>server provides no Content-Type: header.

It will tend to fall back to the save dialog. I don't see why this is
relevant.

> Regardless of which, the cue
>for a human as to what kind of file to expect is the file extension,
>and it's a human who decides what links are worth following and what
>links aren't. An unfamiliar extension tends to mean an unfamiliar
>content type, which tends to mean a missing-plugin message or save-as
>and then a file they haven't the tools to use. Therefore, an unfamiliar
>extension tends to mean the link is not clicked, and that decision is
>not one you can fault unless there was a lot of information next to the
>link that would mean otherwise.

The decision is trivial to fault when I observe that simply clicking
the link to see if it was understood by your browser would have been a
far easier solution that writing a reply explaining that you thought
perhaps that maybe your system might not be able to handle that link.

Cheers
	Bent D
-- 
Bent Dalager - bcd@pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
                                    powered by emacs

In article <1164423357.967273.113320@j44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
 <nebulous99@gmail.com> wrote:
>Bent C Dalager wrote:
>
>> Well, it's been a while since I installed it. As I remember, I had to
>> take some steps to make the thing available over my LAN but the
>> details are long forgotten.
>
>Those would not, presumably, matter for a single-computer single-user
>setup anyway.

Exactly. And these are the only complications I can recall. The rest
was smooth sailing.

Cheers
	Bent D
-- 
Bent Dalager - bcd@pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
                                    powered by emacs

On Nov 25, 10:39 am, "Twisted" <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote:
> if I do at some time in the future become a professional software
> developer,

Unlikely to happen. Certain required social skills, like being able to
work with others, are not in evidence.

>  you can breathe easy knowing that I'll be sure to stay five
> thousand *miles* away from any project team with anyone like *you*.

You know that  you would do us a favor? Can you live with that though?
Oh, by the way, Google decided to decorate your posting with the
following "Sponsored Link":

  Diapers for Dogs & Cats
  Disposable, odor resistant diapers
  for pets work. Buy and try today!
  www.PlanetUrine.com

Looks like Google's adword algorithm is brighter than I thought.

In article <1164422161.470649.59850@j44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
 <nebulous99@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>It translates to "Whatever I do, there is never an occasion where I am
>at fault". (...)
>
>Or malign side effects? You don't say (that they will or that they
>won't).

Knowing that you basically consider yourself to be flawless is helpful
when composing answers to your posts, hopefully increasing the
usefulness of those posts. This is a benign side effect. I can't
off-hand think of any typical malign side effects that might arise.

Cheer
	Bent D
-- 
Bent Dalager - bcd@pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
                                    powered by emacs

In article <1164420756.919877.264150@l39g2000cwd.googlegroups.com>,
 <nebulous99@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>OK, I take that back. What *universe* are you from? Because on *any*
>planet in *this* one, game theory and other basic truths of mathematics
>must hold invariant, and one of the commonest rules of games is that if
>you walk away from an unfinished game other than in an agreed draw, it
>constitutes a forfeit.

Our understanding of human psychology and human/human interactions is
too incomplete to be able to apply any kind of mathematics on it and
expect to get useful answers out of the process.

As for game theory, if that is what you are trying to apply here then
it seems to me you are entirely ignoring the shadow of the future in
your analysis, and you may be stuck in a trivial model where you think
there are only two distinct players in the game.

Cheers
	Bent D
-- 
Bent Dalager - bcd@pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
                                    powered by emacs

in message <1164423357.967273.113320@j44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
nebulous99@gmail.com ('nebulous99@gmail.com') wrote:

> Bent C Dalager wrote:
>> You appear to drastically overestimate the complexity of running a
>> version control system.
> 
> I don't think I'm drastically overestimating the complexity of
> installing, configuring, and using one for the first time as a complete
> n00b.

Sure you are. One command, run only once ever:

apt-get install cvs

(mind you if you aren't running a sensible operating system it will be a
little more complex, but you still only have to install it once).

Then all you need to do is go to the 'Team' menu in the Eclipse package
explorer and select 'Share project'. After you've done that, every time
you've finished a day's work, select 'Team -> Commit', and that preserves
where you were up to at the end of that day. 

Creating versions and branches is a little more complex and merging
branches is a lot more complex, but you don't need to do those things on a
single-developer project (although even on a one-person project branches
can be handy).

-- 
simon@jasmine.org.uk (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

                Do not sail on uphill water.
                                                        - Bill Lee

in message <1164412988.170539.209780@l12g2000cwl.googlegroups.com>, Twisted
('twisted0n3@gmail.com') wrote:

> Simon Brooke wrote:
>> in message <1164288007.207992.244710@l12g2000cwl.googlegroups.com>,
>> Twisted ('twisted0n3@gmail.com') wrote:
>>
>> > Andrew Thompson wrote:
>> >> E.G. <http://www.physci.org/pc/jtest.jnlp>
>> >
>> > Sorry, I don't have any software on my system for interpreting .jnlp
>> > files, whatever those are. (And I *do* have software for the common
>> > and even many of the more obscure formats for images, archives, and
>> > the like, just to put that into some sort of perspective...)
>>
>> Then you don't have Eclipse on your system.
> 
> What -- it interprets whatever .jnlp files are? I didn't know that. :P

No, but Java does, and you can't run Eclipse without Java.

-- 
simon@jasmine.org.uk (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

        Error 1109: There is no message for this error

in message <1164412148.425679.104360@m7g2000cwm.googlegroups.com>, Twisted
('twisted0n3@gmail.com') wrote:

> Simon Brooke wrote:

>> Eclipse isn't configurable as a client for CVS. Eclipse is a working
>> client for CVS straight out of the box. There's no configuration to do,
>> beyond pointing it at your server.
> 
> Hrm. So most of the complexity and work would be on the "setting up the
> server" side of things. 

You don't have to set up the server - it works straight out of the box.
There is no configuration to do.

-- 
simon@jasmine.org.uk (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
begin 666 this_is_not_a_virus.vbs
There is no virus attached to this post.
end

Mark Thornton wrote:
> Once you are satisfied that it is secure, all you have to do is click on
> the link.

Of course, this is fine. What is screwy is the earlier situation where:
a) .jnlp file links are provided with no information about what they
are and what plugins or other software they require to view or use,
apparently on the assumption that everyone here already knew (an
assumption that, I might add, was rather quickly disproven); then b) it
was suggested or implied that people who didn't recognize the format
should have just clicked on them(!).

Note that b) is quite possibly the stupidest piece of advice I have
ever heard in my life, not counting such slightly-worse but generally
facetious suggestions as "go play in traffic" or "why don't you stick
your finger in the socket and find out [whether 110VAC can kill a grown
man]".

"If you don't recognize the file type, just click on it and see what
happens" is on a similar level to "don't use a firewall" or "by all
means, surf with a default-configuration Windows 98 box!", except that
I've never heard the latter two actually suggested by someone who meant
it seriously. What you may know about the safety of these particular
URLs or of that specific file format is irrelevant; the take-home
message for Joe Random is going to be the general statement given
above, with predictable results.

Joe Attardi wrote:
> On Nov 25, 4:39 am, "Twisted" <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > P.S.: if I do at some time in the future become a professional software
> > developer, you can breathe easy knowing that I'll be sure to stay five
> > thousand *miles* away from any project team with anyone like *you*.
>
> Why is that? Because I insist on sticking to practices that have been
> long-established as the best way to do things?
> Because I don't consider another approach unless there is a very good
> and convincing justification?

No, because you flame anyone who doesn't do things exactly the same way
you do, know everything you do, and believe everything you do.

Which, by the way, means that your decision to investigate this
"usenet" thing was an extraordinarily stupid decision, at least in
hindsight. ;)

(And an extraordinarily typical one. One more for the "If I had a dime
for every ..." file.)

> Here's the thing - you have failed to show that your novel approach has
> any advantage over the classloader method.

I have failed at nothing. I am not required to show anything, save
perhaps that in the specific instance in question it has no
*dis*advantage. Oh, and by the way, anyone who believes that they can
make it a requirement in an unmoderated newsgroup that I show even
*that* much is an arrogant prick.

Also, as the very first post mentioning the approach in question
indicated, it is not "my novel approach"; it is an approach described
by the first Web page (a page at sun.com!) that I found Googling for
information regarding my goals at the time.

So you must either fault me for Googling for information regarding my
goals and then investigating and implementing the first candidate found
at sun.com, then sticking with it provisionally when it proved to work,
or admit to making at least 1 error in judgment.

> The only advantage it seems
> to have is that it excuses you from learning any new development tools.

You appear to come from the perspective of someone both experienced
with certain tools and perhaps in an environment where most of the
people you come into contact with are expected or even required to use
them regularly.

Unfortunately, you carried expectations formed in that environment over
to Usenet, and the rest is, as they say, history.

Novice Java developers will come here a) not knowing all of the tools
that are out there (if anyone *ever* will; there do seem to be *so*
many...) and b) not actually caring to just yet. Many will be acutely
aware of a need to pace themselves or risk burning out on too much new
stuff too fast. Unfortunately, when they arrive here, you will flame
them and they will grow discouraged. It will be their impression that
many of the "community elders" are arrogant and rude, and moreover,
their impression apparently will be correct. "Tools are great, but the
community sucks" has actually sunk some promising new technologies in
the past, although Java has enough widespread usage and inertia that it
is clearly not at risk of that particular fate. However, a widespread
perception that "experienced Java developers are know-it-alls and
pricks with zero tolerance for newbies or independent thinking" will
nonetheless have negative consequences. Please quit contributing to
that perception before it does become widespread.

> Do you realize that all the energy you've spent vehemently disagreeing
> with everybody here could have been spent learning Ant? But that won't
> matter to you, because you'd rather keep up the fight here.

Actually, I have no interest in fighting, and you may have noticed that
for all my various blocks and deflections I have not actually landed
many blows of my own. My interest was in getting certain information.
Now, thanks partially to you, it is in correcting all of the various
misconceptions about me, misapplications of logic, and twisted chains
of reasoning that have sprung up of late. The "misconceptions about me"
category being mandatory for obvious reasons, and the others being the
most likely routes to convincing some of the people here to weed out
the various bogus conclusions their faulty inference rules computed as
theorems, so that they quit repeatedly stating these, thus furthering
the mandatory one.

Ultimately, it is *you* who started by vehemently disagreeing with
*me*, by responding to one person's sincere and honest efforts with
derision and flamage and then expecting to be thanked! The only
appropriate response there can be "thanks for nothing"; I'd be better
off if you had never responded, although arguably better off still if
you had responded politely and diplomatically rather than immediately
putting me in the position of having to defend myself and my actions up
to that point or else.

I'm still not sure whether your choosing to write some of your earlier
postings to this thread in such a way as to put my honor in question
and at stake was a deliberate and hostile act or just a stupid mistake.
Either way, though, it seems we're all stuck with the consequences. And
that last applies to everyone who responded less than civilly to a
civil post of mine here.

> What exactly are you trying to prove?

Nothing. I am trying to *dis*prove a number of false allegations that
people have made of late, regarding both my personal traits (such as my
IQ and my competence in various areas) and regarding my actions in
connection with this particular project.

False allegations which have been made either stupidly or maliciously,
but definitely without provocation (i.e. a harmful wrongdoing on my
part, resulting in someone else being insulted, injured, or suffering
property damage, perpetrated beforehand) or anything resembling
supporting evidence (hence the twisted logical scaffolds full of holes
people keep trying to hastily erect under these unsupported accusations
when I respond with skepticism...)

> And this time maybe you can respond to all my questions instead of 'snipping' them.

Satisfied? (Even if many of these questions have been asked and answerd
a dozen times already. Tell me sir, are you a psychiatrist or lawyer of
some sort?)

Joe Attardi wrote:
> At this point, the issue isn't even your approach to the original
> problem, it's your outright refusal to consider any advice that's been
> given to you.

Actually, in a way you are correct. This nonexistent "outright refusal"
certainly is the issue -- or at least, the continued gulf of
misunderstanding whereby some people here still believe that this
mythical "outright refusal" exists.

Or do you consider a refusal to jump first and ask questions later to
be equivalent to a blanket refusal to *ever* jump?

> Of course, you don't see it as advice, because we are all
> just a bunch of meanies because we don't think your approach is the
> best thing ever.

I never said that. However, there are a minimum of three serious
bogosities I already called attention to dozens of times and apparently
must call attention to at least once more:
1. Someone posted here with an honest question, and then information
about their honest efforts to solve it themselves, and the results, in
good faith, and was promptly derided ("Why the hell are you doing it
THAT way?!" or words to that effect). That's uncalled-for.
2. Alternative ways of doing the same task are suggested; when the
original poster does not immediately say "I'll get right on that sir!"
and instead has *questions* and points out possible *problems* (based
on his necessarily incomplete knowledge of the details at that time)
hoping for further information, the responses, by and large, treated
said poster rather in the manner he might expect if, as a military
cadet, he had questioned something instead of saying "Sir, yes, sir!"
and doining it promptly. However this is not a military academy, boot
camp, base, war, or branch of service, it is an unmoderated Usenet
group. Issuing fifty lashes for insubordination to a pseudonymous
participant is not only rude, it's also stupid, since you can hardly
enforce it.
3. This one tops the others, easily: despite the fact that the original
poster did NOT unconditionally reject the suggestions he received, he
is accused, repeatedly and by multiple people, of having done so.

And this is actually leaving aside all the tangential issues that have
arisen in connection with this mess, involving google's search engine,
google's usenet portal, various unfamiliar tools, file extensions, and
URLs, and so forth, in connection with which there is a similar pattern
of placing blame with that same person for the apparently heinous
crimes of a) not being omniscient, b) not just trying things and
finding out (even where those things are known as a general case,
regardless of specific exceptions not knowable in advance by the person
in question, to carry potential security risks for their computer), and
c) daring to speak up in their own defense and in the defense of their
choices (not one of which, mind you, was malicious or negligent or even
resulted in a single failure or problem at their end) rather than
automatically and uncritically accept the various harsh criticisms that
were leveled at him.

It is the insistence that I should have uncritically accepted not just
one thing, but *everything*, that I find here most appalling.
Especially in an area where a) practical engineering is concerned, and
the way the world really works is far more important than opinions,
church dogma, conformity, orthodoxy, or what-have-you and b) there are
also security considerations from time to time. Uncritically accepting
that X isn't a security risk, that Y isn't a waste of time, or that Z
isn't going to in a particular case be more work than it's worth, would
be things I would consider to automatically disqualify someone from any
development team *I* ever ran. I'd want the devs thinking about what
they were doing and asking questions in preference to just taking
anyone's word for anything. Most especially if they were coding
anything with security implications.

One thing I certainly would not tolerate in any place where I could
forbid it is anyone ever, with whatever excuse, blasting someone merely
for harboring skepticism of *any* kind, or riding someone for not
uncritically accepting what they said, or whatever. The *only*
exception that I can think of is the specific case of military officers
issuing orders, particularly where either a) time is critical or b) the
receiver is being trained to react as quickly and obediently as
possible to prepare them for a). And then only if someone signed up for
it; I don't generally support any sort of draft unless there's a direct
and imminent threat to the homeland, and even then I'd sooner see
draftees doing the dishes and cooking than on the front lines if
possible; 21st-century conflicts aren't usually to be tilted in one's
favor by throwing ten million pieces of greenhorn cannon-fodder at the
enemy, unlike 20th-century ones, in which that sometimes worked, or
19th-century and earlier, in which it was usually the deciding factor.
:)

> Of course by this point, nothing I say is going to change your mind.
> You are firmly locked into the mindset that everyone is just out to get
> you.

Actually, it's worse than that. I'm firmly locked into the mindset that
several people here (including you) are clinically insane, and you lot
have done a right good job of convincing me of what I previously merely
suspected, mainly by either a) not comprehending or simply b) not
reading my postings while nonetheless responding (other than with "I
don't quite understand this; please elaborate?" and the like, for case
a)).

Bent C Dalager wrote:
> The decision is trivial to fault when I observe that simply clicking
> the link

WRONG.

You must have mistaken me for one of those bozos who clicks on anything
shiny or flashy they see and then comes whining to the nearest geek
(probably you, in the case of the ones you know personally) about how
their machine has slowed down and gotten wonky and suddenly every web
site is full of popups, and you then spend the next sixteen hours
either a) cleaning spyware off their machine or b) telling them in
detail why you now refuse to do likewise.

My policy isn't to click on any links unless I have already got a
fairly good idea of the link's purpose and what the content at the
other side is (which does include if it answers a question and I know
the question but not the answer, by the way -- so long as I know that
the link answers the question).

For one thing, there are so many links and there's so little time.
For another, I like to keep my computer mine, rather than handing it
over to some spammer, marketing researcher, script kiddie, or faceless
large corporation on a silver platter. Needless to say, links that end
in unusual extensions are treated with extra suspicion, and .exe, .scr,
..dll, and the like are pretty much just ignored. Links in Usenet or
email (especially unsolicited) are also especially suspect, unless they
come from a person I know and trust. Of which there are currently zero
posting here, in case you are wondering.

People who post a link without saying much or anything about why or
what it leads to can therefore expect it to be ignored.

People who additionally get on my case for not following the link in
question are not simply ignored; they land squarely in my shit-list
because they obviously don't respect my time or my desire to keep my PC
uninfested. If they respected either, they'd do me the courtesy of
either a) giving me more information to go on about their stupid little
link, b) not posting the link in the first place, or c) at least not
exploding when, after some time has gone by, I still haven't touched it
with a ten foot pole.

Of course, it may be that some of you who do this are making an honest
mistake. I have fingered four of these as the most likely:
1. You think that I know (or somehow *should* know) what's at the other
end before going there or being told what to expect by anyone.
2. You think that I can somehow infer this from the link's URL text
itself. This is patently not the case, and whenever I've pointed out
that some particular case will lead to an inference different from
what's actually there, the response has been to tell me that I'm dumb
to be making that inference. I'm not, and *you're* stupid for expecting
me to make any *other* inference, given that I have no other
information to go on.
3. You are unaware of my link following policy (I've stated it before,
but half of what I write is being ignored, so it bears repeating, as in
this message) and furthermore you neglect to think through the
consequences of following the more liberal policy you seem to expect,
to wit, that of following every link you see.
4. Or, you think I should adopt a different link policy, probably one
that whitelists links from you personally. Sorry, I don't know you well
enough. I won't treat your links any differently than any others on
Usenet, unless one day I *do* know you well enough. (For many of you
here, by the way, that day will hopefully be "never", and for those of
you who have ever insisted that I should trust them intimately with my
time and my computer's safety on the very same day that we first met,
it certainly is.)

PofN wrote:
> On Nov 25, 10:39 am, "Twisted" <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > if I do at some time in the future become a professional software
> > developer,
>
> Unlikely to happen. Certain required social skills, like being able to
> work with others, are not in evidence.

ITYM "being able to kowtow to others". I've not been asked to "work
with" anyone here, but some people do seem to get annoyed that I don't
bend down and kiss their feet because they graced me with their
presence and honored me with some less-than-friendly news post or
another.

That probably does mean that job positions where the boss has certain
personality traits are right out; but then those are jobs I don't want
anyway.

[snip unamusing "sponsored link"]

Spammer.

Bent C Dalager wrote:
> In article <1164422161.470649.59850@j44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
>  <nebulous99@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >It translates to "Whatever I do, there is never an occasion where I am
> >at fault". (...)
> >
> >Or malign side effects? You don't say (that they will or that they
> >won't).
>
> Knowing that you basically consider yourself to be flawless is helpful
> when composing answers to your posts, hopefully increasing the
> usefulness of those posts. This is a benign side effect. I can't
> off-hand think of any typical malign side effects that might arise.

To put this in context -- ultimately, I consider everyone to be
flawless that doesn't act either a) with malice aforethought, b)
precipitately without thinking first (other than when confronted with
an emergency), or c) with a sufficiently broken worldview that their
idea of acting without malice includes things like murder and whatnot.
The former need to go to jail, the latter to the padded variety of
cell, and the ones in the middle may just need some help.

I, obviously, am none of the above (including the middle one; in fact,
people here are, to a substantial degree, trying to fault me for,
apparently, thinking without acting precipitately first!)

Bent C Dalager wrote:
> As for game theory, if that is what you are trying to apply here then
> it seems to me you are entirely ignoring the shadow of the future in
> your analysis, and you may be stuck in a trivial model where you think
> there are only two distinct players in the game.

Actually, my model is fairly sophisticated. The model I use for verbal
mudslinging (wherever it might arise) is as a game where there is a one
to one correspondence between participants and people, and each
participant has a score. This score is never positive, and the only
actions available are to insult someone (lowering their score by an
amount that depends on the insult) or to defend (raising one's own
score). In fact, it's even more complex, since each participant has an
associated log of insults received, each with a weighting (the sum
gives the participant's score) and a logical model of the semantic
content of the insult of some kind. The score is worse for insults that
make nastier claims ("idiot" is not as bad as "murderer") but less in
magnitude for insults that are unbelievable (e.g. "he screwed his
great-grandmother's distant monkey ancestors -- every last one of
them", which is difficult to believe as it requires a) an awful lot of
screwing and b) a time machine). Actual evidence strengthens an insult.
A defense has a similar structure and involves evidence opposing an
insulting claim, or the pointing out of a logical fallacy whereby an
insult's conclusion is not properly inferred from the premises. A
simple model would break down a given insulting message into individual
insulting claims and a purported chain of logic from premises. More
independent chains from independent premises strengthens it; ludicrous
premises weaken or nullify it; and the severity of the accusation in
the conclusion is also significant. A rebuttal either breaks a chain
(by finding a flaw in the inferences made) or attacks a premise (e.g.
with countervailing evidence), and when successful, nullifies the
insulting conclusion. In the simple case of one insult with two
independent supporting arguments and one rebuttal that exposes a flaw
in one of those arguments, a score of minus 2N occurs but is increased
to just minus N, pending successful rebuttal of the other argument (or
the appearance of new insults).

The game is obviously negative-sum, so whoever starts an insult fest is
clearly an idiot. ;)
Once started, though, the goals of the participants vary. Some seek to
exit with a zero score and others seek to cause a target to exit with a
negative score. The best case scenario is a zeros all around, because
the targets' rebuttals are successful and the attackers give up.

It can be complexified, for example in trivial ways like permitting
someone to defend a third party; or considering a rebuttal's effect to
begin decaying if excessive time passes between insult and
corresponding rebuttal. As considered in practise, I assume that a
rebuttal that is a direct followup to an insulting usenet post is more
effective than a rebuttal located elsewhere, since a reader of the
insult is most likely to also read the rebuttal in the former case.

Unfortunately, there is clearly no strategy that guarantees a
zero-score exit. The closest is to monitor for, and rebut, insults as
they come, and to remain vigilant until a substantial amount of time
has elapsed without a new one, suggesting that all of your attackers
have given up on holding your score down and moved on to other targets
or quit the game entirely.

Perhaps a simpler analogy is to a bunch of people in a swimming pool,
in which a person can hold another's head underwater, a person can keep
their head above water (requiring constant effort if under attack, and
as a simplifying assumption none otherwise), and one's score is one's
blood oxygen level (which drops when held under, rises when you are
afloat, and, in the real world, becomes dangerously low after four
minutes of being held under). Clearly in this model the target not
defending is suicide, but the attack is still futile (given the
assumption that the target can indefinitely survive through continuing
defensive action; in a real pool of water, with people of varying
strength, that obviously doesn't work) unless the defender is really,
really stupid.

Of course, the first serious complication (in both models) is adding in
a rule by which *an attacker is allowed to try to trick a target into
not defending*...

Actually, there are some variation scorings that may apply to real-life
situations. In one, the attackers' goal is to waste targets' time, or
else it's to either waste targets' time or make an insult stick. In the
former, the defender should ignore the attacker instead of defend, but
this only applies to a real life situation in which a) there's no third
party present for any of the insults and b) the attacker gains somehow
by the defender's waste of time, despite the attacker spending a
comparable amount of time. In the latter, the attacker always wins,
since the defender is either insulted or wastes time; to "win" all you
have to do is make an insult(!).

Timewaster? You bet, but then again, this *is* Usenet...

Simon Brooke wrote:
> > I don't think I'm drastically overestimating the complexity of
> > installing, configuring, and using one for the first time as a complete
> > n00b.
>
> Sure you are. One command, run only once ever:
>
> apt-get install cvs

Here's the breakdown for you:
Time		Expense		Task
c. 12 hours	$500		Obtain new low-end computer
c. 7 days*	$0		Get, configure, familiarize
				self with Debian, Ubuntu,
				or similar
c. 10 minutes	$0		apt-get install cvs
c. 12 hours	$0		Familiarize self with cvs
				and configure it for 1st
				time
c. 10 minutes	$0		Configure new project
c. 24 hours**	$0		Become used to new procedure
				for editing source files
c. 9 days	$500		Total expenditures
* May be too optimistic
** Optimistic if new procedure != old procedure, pessimistic
otherwise

It will take a *lot* to convince me that applying version control to my
four-class project is worth 9 days and 500 dollars to me, especially in
light of my current disposable income (or lack thereof).

Of course, the above is specific to the "apt-get" suggestion you made.
It may be possible to knock a week and all $500 off those estimates if
there's a sensible Windows port and corresponding installer, which
means you'd then only need to convince me that it's worth about two
days of my time.

(Assumed is that CVS and apt-get are free software, which I'm fairly
certain is the case.)

The most optimistic scenario assumes that (though it doesn't seem
likely) CVS does not alter the procedure for editing source files at
all, despite everything I've heard about checking things in and out
when using version control. (Edit conflict resolution is, I assume,
moot for the single-user case.) The time drops from days to mere hours
in that case, which may still require marshaling a lot of evidence
given that my project is all of four .java files big (not counting
XImageSource and its dependencies).

However, I have the feeling you're asking me to believe that getting
started using version control for the first time ever is as simple as
running an installer, perhaps rebooting, and then doing the same thing
you already did. If that's the case, either the benefits of version
control are some form of magic, or nothing actually changes (except my
free disk space, down by Christ alone knows what, of course). :)
Because surely things like reverting changes, accessing older
revisions, branching or forking the project, diffing stuff, and whatnot
aren't just going to happen by simply thinking about them; they'd
require some learning and time and familiarization with the interfaces
of tools of some kind.

Logically, the benefits don't manifest themselves until *after* the
above investment of time and effort. Therefore said investment is not
warranted until significant such benefits are at least on the horizon.
So far as I can tell, for me, for this project, right now, that is not
the case. (At least, not yet, and until then, YAGNI.)

> Then all you need to do is go to the 'Team' menu in the Eclipse package
> explorer and select 'Share project'.

Share with whom? I thought this was single-user we were discussing. (Or
is it just called that?)

> After you've done that, every time
> you've finished a day's work, select 'Team -> Commit', and that preserves
> where you were up to at the end of that day.

One added step per project and one more at intervals while coding. Plus
of course whatever is needed to actually use this as anything other
than a fancy backup system (and even that assumes that it *copies*
rather than *moves* my .java files so that two clones of the project
(the one in the repository and the original one) are being kept in
synch. :))

> Creating versions and branches is a little more complex and merging
> branches is a lot more complex, but you don't need to do those things on a
> single-developer project (although even on a one-person project branches
> can be handy).

I expect anything that actually makes this a value-add is more complex.
:)

Keeping the slow accumulation of a copy of every sourcefile for every
single change ever made to it from eventually exhausting my disk space
is also going to become significant at some point if I ever use this
thing. I don't expect that's straightforward, either. (Best case: pull
some menu down, "delete...", "revisions older than [date drop-down]".
Worst case: RTFM, crack knuckles, open a command prompt, type something
in, pray, and then curse God upon finding that yes, you did just delete
everything *newer* than <date> or somesuch. Least probable case: you
just find and delete ordinary .java files with old last-modified dates
from some directory you one day discover to be occupying 60% of your
main partition.)

Simon Brooke wrote:
> in message <1164412148.425679.104360@m7g2000cwm.googlegroups.com>, Twisted
> ('twisted0n3@gmail.com') wrote:
>
> > Simon Brooke wrote:
>
> >> Eclipse isn't configurable as a client for CVS. Eclipse is a working
> >> client for CVS straight out of the box. There's no configuration to do,
> >> beyond pointing it at your server.
> >
> > Hrm. So most of the complexity and work would be on the "setting up the
> > server" side of things.
>
> You don't have to set up the server - it works straight out of the box.
> There is no configuration to do.

Oh, goody. So all you have to do is a) have a firewall(!), b) make any
newly-open port not internet-accessible in same while making sure it's
still locally visible, c) learn how to point Eclipse at it, and d)
learn how to use the fancy new features (which may well involve blowing
up several dummy projects and mangling and mutilating numerous dummy
source files).

That should only take sixteen hours or so of my time. When I have
something on the front burner with enough scope and complexity to
warrant this, I'll be sure and let you know, OK? :)

Twisted, are you seriously still convinced that somebody is
manipulating Google Groups to limit your postings? It's not just your
total posts; as I've said before, it is the short time period between
them that causes it to be blocked. I have run into this limit several
times in the past when participating in heated political flame wars in
alt.politics.bush. It's frustrating, yes, but still better than paying
for separate Usenet access, isn't it?

You claim that your message was immediately met with hostility and "Why
the hell are you doing it THAT way!?" type responses, and challenges to
your IQ. Let's review.

* You posted your original question, asking about bundling the
application icon with the app.
* Larry Barowski replied, suggesting the usual method of
Class.getResource()

(http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.java.programmer/msg/7bddc5eccb372826)
* Mark Rafn replied, clarifying the notion of a URL, and further
expanded on the example of Class.getResource().

(http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.java.programmer/msg/dc87d41e9c4585b0)

So far, you've had two helpful replies without a hint of sarcasm or
hostility.

* Patricia Shanahan simply asked what the advantage was of your
approach you decided on over the getResource approach. Patricia is
always very helpful on this group and I doubt it was meant with
sarcasm.
(http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.java.programmer/msg/b54c7fbbb62f2150)
* Mark Rafn again reiterated the getResource approach. While he did
capitalize MUCH (Wouldn't it be MUCH easier), it's clear this was for
emphasis on the word 'much' and not to be yelling at you.
(http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.java.programmer/msg/1b1b884c4c15cd1f)

Here comes the sarcasm.

Your reply to Patricia has a very condescending tone:
>> It's built right into the frame subclass file it applies to?
>> It doesn't need to be put in some jar file, then retrieved, then all
>> kinds of recovery code written to deal with the IOExceptions that can
>> result if Something Goes Wrong(tm)?
>> No need to fiddle with classpath?
>> Everything is self-contained in the source files?

Andrew Thompson picked up on the sarcasm, and responded with a bit of
his own:
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.java.programmer/msg/9d43e685b5e5edd9

However, a couple of messages later, Andrew Thompson replied again,
with more helpful advice for you,
about finding the user's home directory, mentions Java Web Start, and
touches a bit on the advantage
of getResource:
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.java.programmer/msg/a656a65ac11ac355

Then Chris Smith replies, discussing getResource some more and gives
you advice on the exception
handling. Seems pretty helpful to me.
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.java.programmer/msg/d4fc60e0adc59fd5

Next up, I enter the fray. I made a small, admittedly sarcastic post
asking why you think learning Ant is a bad thing.
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.java.programmer/msg/5f66b204966b0e8d

Daniel Pitts replies. He is challenging your approach a bit, but it
does not come across as hostile or sarcastic. States his opinion that
"It Just Works(tm)" is a bad approach to software, then poses the
question of what happens when you need more icons later on. He then
suggests another alternative, using a ByteArrayInputStream and ImageIO.
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.java.programmer/msg/0aea208016123260

Here's where it gets ugly!! And guess who has the next post. Yup, it's
Twisted:
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.java.programmer/msg/bf15e0c47ddd12a6

You complain about bashing - which hasn't happened, just disagreement
and **GASP** discussion of why your approach might not be best.
A remark about people's egos, which apparently means stating your
opinion on a matter.
You mention the replies are universally hostile-toned. There were maybe
two replies up to this point that had a sarcastic or mildly hostile
intent. Not universally.

And of course from there, it gets ugly very quickly. Twisted, you are
the one that turned this thread into an ugly argument, so don't try to
put the blame on the rest of us.

--
jpa

On Nov 26, 3:22 am, "Twisted" <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Joe Attardi wrote:
> > At this point, the issue isn't even your approach to the original
> > problem, it's your outright refusal to consider any advice that's been
> > given to you.Actually, in a way you are correct. This nonexistent "outright refusal"
> certainly is the issue -- or at least, the continued gulf of
> misunderstanding whereby some people here still believe that this
> mythical "outright refusal" exists.
>
> Or do you consider a refusal to jump first and ask questions later to
> be equivalent to a blanket refusal to *ever* jump?
>
> > Of course, you don't see it as advice, because we are all
> > just a bunch of meanies because we don't think your approach is the
> > best thing ever.I never said that. However, there are a minimum of three serious
> bogosities I already called attention to dozens of times and apparently
> must call attention to at least once more:
> 1. Someone posted here with an honest question, and then information
> about their honest efforts to solve it themselves, and the results, in
> good faith, and was promptly derided ("Why the hell are you doing it
> THAT way?!" or words to that effect). That's uncalled-for.
> 2. Alternative ways of doing the same task are suggested; when the
> original poster does not immediately say "I'll get right on that sir!"
> and instead has *questions* and points out possible *problems* (based
> on his necessarily incomplete knowledge of the details at that time)
> hoping for further information, the responses, by and large, treated
> said poster rather in the manner he might expect if, as a military
> cadet, he had questioned something instead of saying "Sir, yes, sir!"
> and doining it promptly. However this is not a military academy, boot
> camp, base, war, or branch of service, it is an unmoderated Usenet
> group. Issuing fifty lashes for insubordination to a pseudonymous
> participant is not only rude, it's also stupid, since you can hardly
> enforce it.
> 3. This one tops the others, easily: despite the fact that the original
> poster did NOT unconditionally reject the suggestions he received, he
> is accused, repeatedly and by multiple people, of having done so.
>
> And this is actually leaving aside all the tangential issues that have
> arisen in connection with this mess, involving google's search engine,
> google's usenet portal, various unfamiliar tools, file extensions, and
> URLs, and so forth, in connection with which there is a similar pattern
> of placing blame with that same person for the apparently heinous
> crimes of a) not being omniscient, b) not just trying things and
> finding out (even where those things are known as a general case,
> regardless of specific exceptions not knowable in advance by the person
> in question, to carry potential security risks for their computer), and
> c) daring to speak up in their own defense and in the defense of their
> choices (not one of which, mind you, was malicious or negligent or even
> resulted in a single failure or problem at their end) rather than
> automatically and uncritically accept the various harsh criticisms that
> were leveled at him.
>
> It is the insistence that I should have uncritically accepted not just
> one thing, but *everything*, that I find here most appalling.
> Especially in an area where a) practical engineering is concerned, and
> the way the world really works is far more important than opinions,
> church dogma, conformity, orthodoxy, or what-have-you and b) there are
> also security considerations from time to time. Uncritically accepting
> that X isn't a security risk, that Y isn't a waste of time, or that Z
> isn't going to in a particular case be more work than it's worth, would
> be things I would consider to automatically disqualify someone from any
> development team *I* ever ran. I'd want the devs thinking about what
> they were doing and asking questions in preference to just taking
> anyone's word for anything. Most especially if they were coding
> anything with security implications.
>
> One thing I certainly would not tolerate in any place where I could
> forbid it is anyone ever, with whatever excuse, blasting someone merely
> for harboring skepticism of *any* kind, or riding someone for not
> uncritically accepting what they said, or whatever. The *only*
> exception that I can think of is the specific case of military officers
> issuing orders, particularly where either a) time is critical or b) the
> receiver is being trained to react as quickly and obediently as
> possible to prepare them for a). And then only if someone signed up for
> it; I don't generally support any sort of draft unless there's a direct
> and imminent threat to the homeland, and even then I'd sooner see
> draftees doing the dishes and cooking than on the front lines if
> possible; 21st-century conflicts aren't usually to be tilted in one's
> favor by throwing ten million pieces of greenhorn cannon-fodder at the
> enemy, unlike 20th-century ones, in which that sometimes worked, or
> 19th-century and earlier, in which it was usually the deciding factor.
> :)
>
> > Of course by this point, nothing I say is going to change your mind.
> > You are firmly locked into the mindset that everyone is just out to get
> > you.Actually, it's worse than that. I'm firmly locked into the mindset that
> several people here (including you) are clinically insane, and you lot
> have done a right good job of convincing me of what I previously merely
> suspected, mainly by either a) not comprehending or simply b) not
> reading my postings while nonetheless responding (other than with "I
> don't quite understand this; please elaborate?" and the like, for case
> a)).

On Nov 26, 3:01 am, "Twisted" <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Which, by the way, means that your decision to investigate this
> "usenet" thing was an extraordinarily stupid decision, at least in
> hindsight. ;)
You seem to imply that I am new to Usenet. A quick search of Google
Groups can tell you I've been around on Usenet groups since 1997 or so.


Dumbass.

nebulous99@gmail.com wrote:
> ITYM "being able to kowtow to others".

You've mistaken courtesy for kowtowing.

Nebulous> I've solded my problem by doing X

Other> Have you tried Y? It has these advantages ...


There are two ways to respond to such a suggestion ...

Nebulous> How dare you question my virility!

or

Homo Sapiens> Thanks for the suggestion, I'm happy with X for the
moment but appreciate your help.


Only a dolt would think the second response is "kowtowing".



Anyway, why not unravel the statement that produced the NPE so that you
can identify the variable that became null? Don't you have ANY
intellectual curiosity?

In article <1164529537.131320.20310@45g2000cws.googlegroups.com>,
 <nebulous99@gmail.com> wrote:
> Needless to say, links that end
>in unusual extensions are treated with extra suspicion, and .exe, .scr,
>.dll, and the like are pretty much just ignored. Links in Usenet or
>email (especially unsolicited) are also especially suspect, unless they
>come from a person I know and trust. Of which there are currently zero
>posting here, in case you are wondering.

If someone is trying to take over your computer via an HTML link, they
will serve you a .html that has its MIME-type as
application/x-msdos-program or whatever, thereby getting executed by
your OS. They are not going to give it a suspicious extension since
that is not necessary to get the URL executed by the attacker's chosen
application.

Your only practical safeguard against these attacks is to exclusively
install software that you have a reasonable degree of trust in on your
machine or else keep a watchful eye on the MIME-type-to-application
registry on your OS. If you have done this, then it doesn't matter
which links you follow since they won't be able to harm you anyway
(assuming your trust was well placed). If you have not done this, then
any link is suspect no matter how comforting its name may be.

Cheers
	Bent D
-- 
Bent Dalager - bcd@pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
                                    powered by emacs

In article <1164532424.537227.125330@45g2000cws.googlegroups.com>,
 <nebulous99@gmail.com> wrote:
>Bent C Dalager wrote:
>> As for game theory, if that is what you are trying to apply here then
>> it seems to me you are entirely ignoring the shadow of the future in
>> your analysis, and you may be stuck in a trivial model where you think
>> there are only two distinct players in the game.
>
> (Explanation)

Very well, then, it seems that the model has at least two major flaws:

1) It completely disregards the shadow of the future.

2) It presupposes that everyone who observes and participates in the
game is using the same scoring rules that you do. I expect that a
great many people, and in particular people on this newsgroup, do
not. This will tend to result in you coming out of the game with a
completely different score, as viewed by others, than what you
believe. It also exacarbates the negative effects of (1) above.

Cheers
	Bent D
-- 
Bent Dalager - bcd@pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
                                    powered by emacs

Joe Attardi wrote:
> Twisted, are you seriously still convinced that somebody is
> manipulating Google Groups to limit your postings? It's not just your
> total posts; as I've said before, it is the short time period between
> them that causes it to be blocked.

That's ridiculous. Of course there is a short time period between them
-- people tend to read and post news in a single hourlong session (or
thereabouts) rather than trickle their usenet activity out over a full
day. So it's a perfectly normal activity pattern to do a whole lot of
fetches and posts at intervals as short as five minutes (posts) or <1
(fetches) for a few tens of minutes, and then nothing for as much as 24
hours, and so on and so forth. If that activity pattern triggered a
block, then
a) It would mean the people running the show at Google were complete
retards and
b) I'd encounter this far, far more often.

> It's frustrating, yes, but still better than paying
> for separate Usenet access, isn't it?

Except that I *am* paying for separate Usenet access; I'm just not
*receiving* it anymore. As I'm sure I mentioned earlier in the thread,
my ISP stopped providing usenet access (to any of its customers,
apparently nationwide) but they did not reduce my monthly bill at all,
which means that whatever portion of that covered their costs is now
just going straight into their pockets.

Needless to say, the ISP in question is on its way out, but the shoddy
state of north american broadband competition means that this actually
requires I move. At this time, I've had one showing and zero offers on
my house, so the move may not happen for a few months yet ...

(No, I didn't actually put my house up for sale just because by ISP did
something shoddy. There are a number of factors prompting the decision.
ISP misbehavior is one of the less significant of these factors.)

> You claim that your message was immediately met with hostility and "Why
> the hell are you doing it THAT way!?" type responses, and challenges to
> your IQ. Let's review.

Hasn't that already been done -- by *me*? Or did you not read that part
of the thread? (I'm not surprised.)

> * You posted your original question, asking about bundling the
> application icon with the app.
> * Larry Barowski replied, suggesting the usual method of
> Class.getResource()

I shall note here that by the time he did so I was already done
implementing the method I'd discovered via further googling, and busily
tweaking the icon itself in photoshop after a successful test.

> * Mark Rafn replied, clarifying the notion of a URL, and further
> expanded on the example of Class.getResource().

To which I'd later point out that I'd meant "internet URL" by "URL" and
was covering file URLs under "file on the local hard drive" separately.
I might have been clearer in the original post on that point; likewise
he might have read a bit more before jumping on that use of "URL",
whereupon my separate treatment (and non-neglecting) of the local
storage option would have become apparent to him.

> So far, you've had two helpful replies without a hint of sarcasm or
> hostility.

No; that only started once I posted what I'd discovered using google to
the thread.

> * Patricia Shanahan simply asked what the advantage was of your
> approach you decided on over the getResource approach.

She had already misunderstood something if I'd decided on the approach
used "over" anything; at the time I implemented it, I had yet to become
aware of the other. See above. However, misunderstanding isn't a
serious crime. (It has been known to lead up to one mind you.)

The implication that she found "my" approach (which is another
misunderstanding; I don't claim any originality but conversely the
approach I encountered and ended up using carries the cachet of having
been described by a Sun developer-oriented article, a point that seems
to be ignored by everyone else in this sorry mess of a debate) to be
questionable. At this point, there's at least a hint of trouble
brewing.

> * Mark Rafn again reiterated the getResource approach. While he did
> capitalize MUCH (Wouldn't it be MUCH easier), it's clear this was for
> emphasis on the word 'much' and not to be yelling at you.

Despite which, the implication is "Why the fuck?!" and therefore "Are
you a moron?!". At this point, the downhill slide is apparent. And my
own posts prior to that point appear to be without serious fault. If
there was a flaw, it was a clarity issue surrounding the use of "URL"
in the very first post, and *that* did *not* explode into a huge
controversy.


> Your reply to Patricia has a very condescending tone:
> >> It's built right into the frame subclass file it applies to?
> >> It doesn't need to be put in some jar file, then retrieved, then all
> >> kinds of recovery code written to deal with the IOExceptions that can
> >> result if Something Goes Wrong(tm)?
> >> No need to fiddle with classpath?
> >> Everything is self-contained in the source files?

I do?

She asked "what are the advantages..." and I answered that question by
listing five possible reasons. Was this somehow wrong? (If you think
so, I shall make it clear that I don't agree.)

In fact, this is another potential point of hypocrisy. Someone earlier
criticized me for *not* answering tangential-at-best questions put to
me here. Now here is an example of where I *do* answer one, and you
criticize me for *that*. Apparently if I do I'll be attacked for it,
and if I don't I'll be attacked for that, so it's already too late for
me to avoid being attacked the moment someone *asks* a tangential
question.

That can't be right...at least, not "right" in the sense of "just"...

> However, a couple of messages later, Andrew Thompson replied again,
> with more helpful advice for you,
> about finding the user's home directory, mentions Java Web Start, and
> touches a bit on the advantage
> of getResource

Fascinating, although the user's home directory is clearly
inappropriate for an application icon.

[snip some]

I'm not claiming that every response was hostile. Only some of them
were, but that just goes to show that an otherwise useful debate,
discussion, or entire forum can end up dominated by the behavior of a
few loudmouths (and anyone that ends up forced to keep rebutting the
loudmouths).

This is, curiously, reminiscent of a related claim about Usenet: that
about 50% of the traffic is now composed of spam and the cancels
negating the spam. OTOH, most users don't see either, whereas here the
insults and their "cancels" drown pretty much everything else out.

> Next up, I enter the fray. I made a small, admittedly sarcastic post
> asking why you think learning Ant is a bad thing.
> http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.java.programmer/msg/5f66b204966b0e8d

Which presupposed that I even did.

I think one recurring misunderstanding is to misinterpret "not now" as
"not ever". So if I suggest that I either have too much on my plate or
no use for it at the present time, some people take that incorrectly to
mean that I have rejected it outright as *ever* being useful, and since
such a thing *would* itself be incorrect, they then launch all
missiles. Unfortunately, at a target that's actually innocent...

> Daniel Pitts replies. He is challenging your approach a bit, but it
> does not come across as hostile or sarcastic. States his opinion that
> "It Just Works(tm)" is a bad approach to software...

Well, you know what they say about opinions. Like assholes, everyone's
got one and they all stink. :)

I'd agree if what he'd objected to was an attitude of "it doesn't
matter if you don't understand why, so long as it works", but what I'd
actually expressed was more along the lines of "a surefire method is
superior to something that only probably works". In the specific
instance in question, the icon "works" with the same certainty that a
string constant works, rather than depending on some kind of delicate
I/O operation to succeed. The icon might therefore be best off where it
is, or externalized under the same circumstances where a string
constant might be, such as if it's to be localizable or customizable in
some other way. I doubt that there's anything to object to in that
assessment.

> He then
> suggests another alternative, using a ByteArrayInputStream and ImageIO.
> http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.java.programmer/msg/0aea208016123260

I don't recall responding specifically to that, but in case anyone's
wondering, I think it likely that the array constant would be bulkier
in the source code. Up to three digits per character in the string
constant makes it potentially 3x the size, more since every byte value
would be comma-separated vs. characters grouped into strings. So say 4x
the size.

> You complain about bashing - which hasn't happened, just disagreement
> and **GASP** discussion of why your approach might not be best.

Really? First of all, if I mentioned bashing it was because there was
bashing. (Unless, of course, you mean to call me a liar, on top of
everything else that I've been called lately.) Certainly at the time I
felt rather put-upon, having suddenly found that I was expected to
either defend my code or rewrite it (or at least defend it or look
foolish). I chose to defend it, and, frustratingly, instead of my
reasons being accepted and everyone getting on with their lives, people
just continued to question me and imply that I was doing something
wrong or stupid!

In the posting in question, also, I was referring to two additional
threads that contained (at the time) even more overt
bashings-in-progress. (Only one of those is still active, though it
remains hostile at this time, and in the meantime this thread rapidly
worsened until it became easily the worst of the bunch for "bashing".)
A pattern in which everything I said was being subjected to unasked-for
and unwanted scrutiny and criticism had become evident, and it was that
whole pattern that I attacked as being rude, unreasonable, and
unsolicited. Just because I ask some narrowly-specific question about a
particular small aspect of a project does NOT mean that I welcome a
broad-based inquest into every detail of the entire project in
question, or that I am looking for some sort of general critical
review; I'd like the specific question answered and that's all and I'd
like any judgmentalism checked at the goddam door first; just answer
the question in a neutral manner please.

Unfortunately, this wish of mine, expressed then and expressed again
just now, is clearly either lost on just about everyone participating
in the "debate" here or actually being wilfully disregarded. The former
suggests a serious reading comprehension problem (which is odd --
surely anyone who considers himself or herself qualified to answer
Java-related questions here must have the necessary skills in that area
to read the API documentation, at least?) and the latter is outright
disrespectful and rude.

The thing that has most "set me off" though has certainly been the
posts that have let a judgmental opinion shine through rather than
maintaining a professionally neutral demeanor.

> You mention the replies are universally hostile-toned. There were maybe
> two replies up to this point that had a sarcastic or mildly hostile
> intent. Not universally.

Up to that point there had been many that were judgmental. Most of the
truly hostile toned posts had arisen in two other threads up to that
point, but as I'm sure you'll agree, this one swiftly followed them
into the depths of the selfsame toilet-bowl. And went on to set some
sort of goddam record.

> And of course from there, it gets ugly very quickly. Twisted, you are
> the one that turned this thread into an ugly argument, so don't try to
> put the blame on the rest of us.

Incorrect. I responded harshly to a continued pattern of judgmental
responses, and to outright bashing happening in two other threads.
Perhaps I should have separately responded in those threads and kept it
in proportion, in each of the threads, to the worst offense committed
in that particular one. Perhaps. Regardless, as soon as the first
judgmental attitude was permitted to show through in someone's posting,
it was already too late. As long as a neutral discussion of *software
code* was going on, things were peachy. As soon as it became about a
*person* and whether or not they were <insert judgment here>, it became
impossible to avoid a serious argument, since that person then
necessarily had to entrench their position and rebut the judgmental
content in followups, lest they otherwise be perceived as accepting the
wrongful judgments.

[Large amount of quoted material with no further original material
snipped]

Joe Attardi wrote:
> On Nov 26, 3:01 am, "Twisted" <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Which, by the way, means that your decision to investigate this
> > "usenet" thing was an extraordinarily stupid decision, at least in
> > hindsight. ;)

> You seem to imply that I am new to Usenet. A quick search of Google
> Groups can tell you I've been around on Usenet groups since 1997 or so.
>
> Dumbass.

A) I don't care;
B) I don't google people I'm debating hunting for irrelevant stuff to
drag in to use as attack ammunition, unlike some people around here
*cough*PofN*cough*; and
C) I never claimed your decision was recent. Dumbass.

foobarbazqux@hotmail.com wrote:
> nebulous99@gmail.com wrote:
> > ITYM "being able to kowtow to others".
>
> You've mistaken courtesy for kowtowing.

No; evidently *you've* mistaken courtesy for floormat syndrome. I draw
the line at responding with courteous acceptance to someone telling me
what an idiot they think I am.

> Nebulous> I've solded my problem by doing X
>
> Other> Have you tried Y? It has these advantages ...
[snip]
>
> Homo Sapiens> Thanks for the suggestion, I'm happy with X for the
> moment but appreciate your help.
>
> Only a dolt would think the second response is "kowtowing".

And I'm sure only a dolt does. But then none of this bears the remotest
resemblance to anything that's actually happened, now does it?
Comparable would be:

Nebulous> I've solded my problem by doing X

Other> Why the hell aren't you doing Y instead?!

Nebulous> Because <list of reasons> (this actually happened)

Floormat> Oh, I'm sorry, I'm obviously a complete moron*, I'll do so
right away sir! Thank you sir! (this is apparently the kind of response
you desired instead)

*And Floormat is correct, because anyone who uncritically accepts the
sort of judgmental attitude depitced clearly is one.

> Anyway, why not unravel the statement that produced the NPE so that you
> can identify the variable that became null? Don't you have ANY
> intellectual curiosity?

What NPE? I haven't had any null-related problems connected with icon
loading. (I made brief reference to ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsExceptions,
but I'd solved those quickly and without assistance and only posted
about them afterward.)

foobarbazqux@hotmail.com wrote:
[snip]

Oh, you're a PofN sockpuppet. I can tell, because you diddled your
headers to make that last followup count as a twofer.

(And in response to some of the nonsense elsewhere in this thread:
VINDICATED! I have an explicit example now of one post being made to
count for many. So much for the various improbable alternative
explanations for the blocking that have been put forth -- it is PofN
and foobarbazqux@hotmail.com, who are probably the same person anyways,
doing it, and they are doing it in precisely the way I originally
guessed at that.)

I TOLD you in response to your last steaming turd that I would dissect
and analyze your postings to detect and neutralize your BS. Did you
actually think I was bluffing? Idiot. The only reason you succeeded
with that last post was that I only noticed it was you cleverly
disguised as a different idiot after it showed up as posting to two
newsgroups when I'd obviously only clicked "reply" in one. And now, of
course, I will neutralize any further attempts by "foobarbazqux" to do
so in the future too.

Give it up. Either settle your disagreements with me using reasoned
debate, or take a hike. Your underhanded tactics have been rendered
ineffective, and your insulting behavior and resorting to ad hominem
attacks is childish, not to mention reeks of the desperation of a man
who knows he's beaten.

Bent C Dalager wrote:
> If someone is trying to take over your computer via an HTML link...[snip]

None of which is applicable to the *other* matter, which is that I just
plain don't have the spare time for clicking on every single link I
see. If it doesn't look useful just from its name, and there's nothing
telling me what to expect at the other end, it is simply going to be
ignored. Sorry -- I must ignore the vast majority of the links I see
for the same reason as I must reject the vast majority of
registration-requiring Web sites; there are simply too damn many of
them for me to adopt any other policy. And, as you yourself pointed
out, with disguising techniques *any* link might be hazardous and
carries security considerations (even if some more than others).

Twisted wrote:
> Joe Attardi wrote:
....
> > However, a couple of messages later, Andrew Thompson replied again,
> > with more helpful advice for you,
> > about finding the user's home directory, mentions Java Web Start, and
> > touches a bit on the advantage
> > of getResource
>
> Fascinating, although the user's home directory is clearly
> inappropriate for an application icon.

Clearly why I did not suggest it for such.  Your point
at the time was about how to get a 'user directory'.
To reiterate..

(me)
>> > ...Are you intending to put
>> > - properties files
>> > - help text
>> > - localization data
>> > - any of many other resources..
>> > ..'stitched in' to the code?

>> If it gets complex enough to involve such, then there will be separate
>> files for some of those, and I'll have to worry about how to get a user
>> directory 

>Try 
>  System.getProperty("user.home"); 

Andrew T.

Bent C Dalager wrote:
> In article <1164532424.537227.125330@45g2000cws.googlegroups.com>,
>  <nebulous99@gmail.com> wrote:
> >Bent C Dalager wrote:
> >> As for game theory, if that is what you are trying to apply here then
> >> it seems to me you are entirely ignoring the shadow of the future in
> >> your analysis, and you may be stuck in a trivial model where you think
> >> there are only two distinct players in the game.
> >
> > (Explanation)
>
> Very well, then, it seems that [snip insult]
>
> 1) It completely disregards the shadow of the future.

If you'd care to speak English, I might be able to debate you further
on this matter. If you refuse to, then I will have to just blanket
disclaim whatever negative things about me you are saying or implying
and have done with it.

But an attempt to parse what you might be meaning suggests that you've
made a significant error. Far from ignoring the future, I'm concerned
with it. If I didn't care about the future I wouldn't care about the
fact that someone had claimed negative things about me in public. But
thinking about the chain of consequences if they do so unopposed leads
me to act differently. Consider a person who hears the insult, but does
not hear anything that provides a counterbalancing viewpoint -- for
example, a hostile claim about my IQ with no corresponding positive
claim, nor any pointing out of a flaw in the argument used to "prove"
my supposed low IQ. True, this person might discover the flaw on their
own, or simply be skeptical. On the other hand, they might be
credulous, and their belief in my inferiority will then influence how
they treat me in the future.

Now consider the potential scope of the internet, and multiply that one
person by, oh, say, 6 billion or so...

Fortunately, the very people most influenced by these insults, the
credulous, are equally susceptible to be influenced in *both*
directions, from which it isn't difficult to conclude how to prevent
the nightmare scenario of some jerk online convincing the world to have
nothing to do with me (or worse, to actively abuse me). And that method
is simple: for each insult, there must be an equal and opposite
rebuttal. The two influences will exactly cancel. Some people are
credulous, and they will swing widely both ways before settling at the
center again. Others are less susceptible to persuasion, and may budge
slightly or stay put.

Of course, this is with regard to claims that are false, or that are
matters of opinion with no real empirical basis at all. Unfortunately,
if someone were to discover a true but unpleasant claim about me and
start broadcasting it, I don't see any recourse other than to forcibly
shut them up (assuming they marshaled something resembling actual
evidence to support their claim). On the other hand, that has
fortunately not actually happened yet, and there may not be any such
claim anyway. Maybe the real worst-case is that such a claim is found
that, while false, is in some ways particularly convincing anyway, in
much the way it can be difficult to persuade a tribal people that the
earth isn't flat because the alternative is counter to their intuition
and they are unequipped to understand the evidence against its
flatness. Physically escorting them up to orbit and back would likely
be necessary, but that is rather expensive. I hope that a similarly
false-but-plausible-sounding hostile notion regarding me doesn't crop
up, the disproving of which might be similarly involved or expensive...

More generally, this seems to indicate a possibly serious problem with
the mere existence of the Internet, for all its benefits. I'm not a
luddite by any means, but this one particular area is a recurring
concern -- it seems to be possible for any kind of libel, slander, or
mudslinging directed against an individual to be broadcast unreasonably
and undeservedly far and wide now, impossible to recall it (and so to
force its recall using e.g. legal action to obtain a court injunction),
and difficult to counter it in any other way than by a corresponding
broadcast of the negation of what was claimed (in the simplest case,
"what the preceding message said is false", but producing arguments and
evidence against it is surely more effective). And of course every
opinion anyone has ever expressed about anyone else is now susceptible
to a Google search...there seem to be only two defenses. Besides the
counteropinion defense, there's the nymshifting defense -- everyone
could create a new pseudonymous identity for every separate online
interaction, for example one for each separate question or conversation
in comp.lang.java.programmer. This strikes me as a lot of work, until
our communication tools make establishing new pseudonyms easy and
automatic. Also, it needs to be harder to tie together anyone's
pseudonyms. Much harder. As a rule, the originating IP address of every
posting tends to be viewable by everybody else (not just those at
providers who deal with abuse complaints), so we're at minimum talking
about automating something equivalent to a) setting up a new GG account
for every new thread a person participates in, or at least for every
newsgroup or equivalent context, and b) Tor-routing everything
transparently with a minimum of fuss. As far as I can tell, the bare
*minimum* to avoid the rebuttal-requirement scenario is Tor-routing
combined with the creation of a new GG account after each insult,
thereby effectively erasing it from history.

And it is obviously critically important that none of those identities
ever be traceable to your name offline, lest you have to actually have
your name legally changed just to escape an undeserved reputation
created by some loser on the Internet with too much free time. The last
time I checked, that is not only a massive inconvenience, it actually
*costs money* too...and that means that a penetration enables anyone
who wants to to cost you money at any time, at the push of a button. In
actual fact, it's even worse; at least when past insults that are
believed accumulate to the point of interfering with activities like
job-finding or getting loans, the victim will have to change their name
legally, relocate, find a new job, and about six thousand other things.
To top it off, so will their whole family, and most of their friends
will have to fall by the wayside, leaving only those who can definitely
be trusted with the ability to connect the old and new identities! The
estimated expense of all this is upwards of $6000, *if* an online
problem develops into a problem of large enough magnitude. And this can
potentially be caused at any time by anyone who simply decides they
have a beef with you... I don't see any solution other than strong
online pseudonymity to preventing anyone from being able to cost anyone
else $6000 and months of inconvenience at the drop of a hat. It should
be noted that in less affluent countries and in the US with its
hole-riddled safety net, the consequences can even be death by
starvation or exposure, if someone starts spreading internet rumours
and nonsense that gets you fired, gets you unhireable, and thus you
don't eat ever again. The only insurance would be to sock a few tens of
thousands away as an emergency relocation-and-name-change fund, which
you might not have saved up yet by the time the bomb gets dropped...

If anything, there's worse. After all, people offline will know your
legal name and place of business and things like that. If one of
*those* decides to ruin you with online rumour-spreading, then to put
things bluntly, you're fucked even if you *do* use strong pseudonymity.
So the internet may well force us to limit our offline transactions to
only that which we can't do online. Human social interaction becomes a
largely online-only affair, and offline is limited to highly ritualized
formal transactions that can't be done online and in which everyone is
nervous and walking on eggshells because any other participant that
gets a mind to can blow their whole life sky-high. It's nearly as bad
as a Wild West type setting where everyone packs a gun and there's very
little accountability regarding their use of it. At least you can start
over after the attacks depicted in this scenario, unlike after getting
fatally shot. On the flip side, it's easy to set up justice systems to
catch and punish the majority of people who wantonly shoot people, and
in the process prevent by deterrence a lot of the same. There's also
the mutually assured destruction factor that you might *be* shot when
you pull the gun, if your target is a quicker draw. Whereas the same
strong pseudonymity necessary to enable someone to quickly amputate an
online "limb" that becomes "gangrenous" before it threatens the whole
organism also enables someone who penetrates your real name to attack
it online untraceably. There's no hope for justice and no MAD threat
when the victim can't identify who nuked him to target their own
missiles and the police also can't identify the perp. And that means
there's no deterrence.

I can't see any solutions to the final dilemma at all. On the one hand,
we could try to somehow *prevent* strong pseudonymity, but this opens
up a Pandora's box of surveillance, police state behavior, chilling of
speech, and so forth, and doesn't stop someone "nuking" someone else
with strongly negative belief-spreading about them. It only ensures the
MAD option and possibly enables some kind of legal action, which is
cold comfort since in that world you also can't change your identity
and start over after being nuked.

On the other hand, we could push a magic button and make everyone in
the world disregard anything bad they hear (however plausible) about
anyone else over the internet, and while we're at it make gullibility
itself a crime, banish war and poverty, and institute peace on earth by
fiat. I can tell you, though, that I already tried one of those
miraculous easy buttons from Staples and it definitely didn't perform
as advertised, so that option seems to be right out. ;)

Where does that leave us? We can't make everyone else not be gullible,
and we can't make everyone else like us or even just not say nasty
things about us on the net. We can only respond with a change of
identity if our current one ends up in undeserved disrepute (and
enabling that, mind you, enables people to get rid of identities in
*deserved* disrepute too...)

If you have any brilliant suggestions, I'd like to hear them.
Currently, my two rays of hope here are things like Tor and Freenet, on
the one hand, and (paradoxically) the proliferation of surveillance on
the other. The latter may *force* society to become really, really
tolerant in a big hurry once it reaches the knee of the curve, and that
will take the potentially serious consequences out of the equation, and
reduce insults again to what they once were before the Internet:
something you could just shrug off with impunity.

Andrew Thompson wrote:
> Clearly why I did not suggest it for such.  Your point
> at the time was about how to get a 'user directory'.
> To reiterate..

[snip]

OK. This thread has grown far too long for me to remember anything's
specific context, and the post I was following up to had no indication
that it had come up in any other way than as a suggested icon location.

Where, I'm sure you agree, it *would* be inappropriate. :)

On Nov 27, 12:19 am, "Twisted" <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote:
> B) I don't google people I'm debating hunting for irrelevant stuff to
> drag in to use as attack ammunition, unlike some people around here
> *cough*PofN*cough*; and

Ha ha. Don't blame PofN for your weird Usenet posts elsewhere. As
you've said before, it's a public unmoderated forum. If you don't like
it, well, don't post!

Joe Attardi wrote:
> On Nov 27, 12:19 am, "Twisted" <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > B) I don't google people I'm debating hunting for irrelevant stuff to
> > drag in to use as attack ammunition, unlike some people around here
> > *cough*PofN*cough*; and
>
> Ha ha. Don't blame PofN for your weird Usenet posts elsewhere.

I don't; only for referencing them where they are clearly irrelevant
and for an evident case of net.stalking and borderline harassment. Do I
*really* have to create a separate GG account for every froup I read
just to avoid this kind of nonsense? I hope not. :P

nebulous99@gmail.com wrote:
> Andrew Thompson wrote:
> > Clearly why I did not suggest it for such.  Your point
> > at the time was about how to get a 'user directory'.
> > To reiterate..
>
> [snip]
>
> OK. This thread has grown far too long for me to remember anything's
> specific context, and the post I was following up to had no indication
> that it had come up in any other way than as a suggested icon location.
>
> Where, I'm sure you agree, it *would* be inappropriate. :)

Sure.  I'd put icons in the application jar (mentioned earlier,
repeated by (or possibly repeating) others, lost amongst the
torrent of this thread..).

Andrew T.

On Nov 27, 12:18 am, "Twisted" <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote:
> a) It would mean the people running the show at Google were complete
> retards and
> b) I'd encounter this far, far more often.
Will you shut up about the Google Groups posting problems? Take off
your tinfoil hat; nobody is interfering with Google Groups. As I have
said and you continue to ignore, I have run into this limit at times
too when involved in heated discussions involving lots of posts.

> As I'm sure I mentioned earlier in the thread,
> my ISP stopped providing usenet access (to any of its customers,
> apparently nationwide) but they did not reduce my monthly bill at all,
> which means that whatever portion of that covered their costs is now
> just going straight into their pockets.
Way to over-simplify. You are becoming quite the conspiracy theorist.

> (No, I didn't actually put my house up for sale just because by ISP did
> something shoddy. There are a number of factors prompting the decision.
> ISP misbehavior is one of the less significant of these factors.)
No one cares about your housing situation.

> Hasn't that already been done -- by *me*? Or did you not read that part
> of the thread? (I'm not surprised.)
Hey jackass, I've read the thread over and over every time I come back
to read your latest drivel. Your "review" was simply a distortion of
what happened to place you in the role of the poor innocent victim -
give me a break. At least I provided links and references to the
messages I was discussions.

> > * You posted your original question, asking about bundling the
> > application icon with the app.
> > * Larry Barowski replied, suggesting the usual method of
> > Class.getResource()I shall note here that by the time he did so I was already done
> implementing the method I'd discovered via further googling, and busily
> tweaking the icon itself in photoshop after a successful test.
So that means after that point, advice is no longer accepted? After
this point, advice to the contrary becomes bashing and hostility,
apparently.

> I might have been clearer in the original post on that point; likewise
> he might have read a bit more before jumping on that use of "URL",
> whereupon my separate treatment (and non-neglecting) of the local
> storage option would have become apparent to him.
Jumping on? He was just trying to help, for God's sake! There was
nothing negative about his post, he was trying to be helpful!


> No; that only started once I posted what I'd discovered using google to
> the thread.
Wrong. It started when you started acting that way.

> The implication that she found "my" approach (which is another
> misunderstanding;
It's not a misunderstanding. You're oversimplifying again. It is your
approach as in, the approach you chose to use.

> the approach I encountered and ended up using carries the cachet of having
> been described by a Sun developer-oriented article, a point that seems
> to be ignored by everyone else in this sorry mess of a debate) to be
> questionable. At this point, there's at least a hint of trouble
> brewing.
Not really. I once wrote a Sun developer article about web services,
using the low level JAXM API to manually construct SOAP messages. It
was mostly academic; in practice, nobody would use such an archaic and
overcomplicated method. Sun developer articles are not always best
practices. So no, no trouble brewing here.


> Despite which, the implication is "Why the fuck?!" and therefore "Are
> you a moron?!".
That's your ego kicking in. He said nothing to make it sound that way,
unless you were overly defensive to begin with.

> > Your reply to Patricia has a very condescending tone:
> > >> It's built right into the frame subclass file it applies to?
> > >> It doesn't need to be put in some jar file, then retrieved, then all
> > >> kinds of recovery code written to deal with the IOExceptions that can
> > >> result if Something Goes Wrong(tm)?
> > >> No need to fiddle with classpath?
> > >> Everything is self-contained in the source files?I do?
>

> Fascinating, although the user's home directory is clearly
> inappropriate for an application icon.
How dare he deviate from your original question!! Oh yeah, you had
mentioned the user's directory and he mentioned that in response to
that.

> Really? First of all, if I mentioned bashing it was because there was
> bashing. (Unless, of course, you mean to call me a liar, on top of
> everything else that I've been called lately.)
I don't think you are a liar. I think you were overly defensive from
the beginning and as such, took everything as an attack against you,
which is utterly ridiculous.

> I felt rather put-upon, having suddenly found that I was expected to
> either defend my code or rewrite it (or at least defend it or look
> foolish). I chose to defend it, and, frustratingly, instead of my
> reasons being accepted and everyone getting on with their lives, people
> just continued to question me and imply that I was doing something
> wrong or stupid!
We were discussing the approach to your problem, so of course we were
asking about the advantages of your approach, whoops I'm sorry, I mean
the approach you chose. And Oh No! People continued to question you??!!
It was an ongoing discussion, so what? Nobody forced you to come back
and write the hostile replies that you did.

The fact that everyone in this thread is pretty much unanimously in
agreement about your piss-poor attitude might tell you something about
your tone, were you not so self-important to keep this going as is.

I've read some other threads that Twisted/Nebulous/whatever else has
been in - and from what I see, he gets in a huge argument in every
single one he posts in!

Might want to think about that, Twisted.

On Nov 27, 2:17 am, nebulou...@gmail.com wrote:
> I don't; only for referencing them where they are clearly irrelevant
> and for an evident case of net.stalking and borderline harassment. Do I
> *really* have to create a separate GG account for every froup I read
> just to avoid this kind of nonsense? I hope not. :P

Hahaha, did you *really* just say 'net.stalking' ? What's next, LOL and
ROFL?
And it's not really nonsense. If it were nonsense, Google wouldn't have
provided that feature.
Oh wait, you've already said that Google is wrong. So add that to the
list, I guess.

In article <1164420756.919877.264150@l39g2000cwd.googlegroups.com>,
 <nebulous99@gmail.com> wrote:

[ snip ]

> This group has a better track record than comp.text.tex, I'll grant you
> -- there, every other person seems to be trying to sell something
> (usually a book), and I've seen a wide variety of incomplete,
> inapplicable, or outright wrong answers get posted in response to n00b
> questions 

(For other readers of this thread:  Not everyone shares this opinion
of comp.text.tex.  Most of the (admittedly few) questions I've posted
there have been replied to promptly and with helpful information.)

> (as generally indicated when the n00b does only and exactly
> what someone suggests and it blows up in their face, and then they post
> back to relate the gory details). Some of those cases seem to have
> resulted from the answer-poster assuming the n00b had extra knowledge
> that the n00b didn't actually have (so, lesson one: don't assume a n00b
> knows *anything* they didn't say or show they know); one case involved
> some construct that had to be wrapped in something to work, but whoever
> posted it neglected to mention that fact; the n00b naturally just
> pasted the construct in without doing anything else and detonated his
> project into the next century, then logged on and detonated the
> newsgroup. It took weeks for that particular thread to die and it ended
> up with over 500 postings...

Is this the one that began with you asking ....  I forget, but the
ensuing furor had much in common with this thread.  

(For other readers of this thread:  I foolishly attempted something
along the same lines as what Oliver Wong has been doing in this thread,
with equal (lack of) success.)

> other cases have looked like they could
> have been more intentional, rather than stemming simply from dubious
> assumptions about someone's state of knowledge. Perhaps the better to
> motivate those book sales...

[ snip ]

-- 
B. L. Massingill
ObDisclaimer:  I don't speak for my employers; they return the favor.

In article <1164606076.915898.158990@j44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
Twisted <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote:
>Bent C Dalager wrote:
>> If someone is trying to take over your computer via an HTML link...[snip]
>
>None of which is applicable to the *other* matter, which is that I just
>plain don't have the spare time for clicking on every single link I
>see.

This raises the question of why you bother asking questions at all, if
you're most likely not going to care about the answer anyway. There
appears to be a general consensus on this newsgroup (and, indeed, in
others that I follow) that the asker must expect to have to do a bit
of legwork himself to get where he's going - no one else has the time
to lead him there by hand. If you're not prepared to do that minimum
bit of research, then what possible benefit is Usenet to you?

Cheers
	Bent D
-- 
Bent Dalager - bcd@pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
                                    powered by emacs

Twisted wrote:
> foobarbazqux@hotmail.com wrote:
> > nebulous99@gmail.com wrote:
> > > ITYM "being able to kowtow to others".
> >
> > You've mistaken courtesy for kowtowing.
>
> No; evidently *you've* mistaken courtesy for floormat syndrome.

You're fond of pantomime?

> I draw
> the line at responding with courteous acceptance to someone telling me
> what an idiot they think I am.

I don't recall anyone using the word idiot prior to this, but I have
skipped a lot of your Logorrhoea, so I may have missed it. Sensible
people can cope gracefully with being called an idiot when they've
behaved like one.

Joe Attardi wrote:
> On Nov 27, 12:18 am, "Twisted" <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > a) It would mean the people running the show at Google were complete
> > retards and
> > b) I'd encounter this far, far more often.
> Will you shut up about the Google Groups posting problems?

[Attack post detected. Response mandated.]

It's called "topic drift". It happens. If you don't care for it, feel
free to ignore that branch of this thread now.

> I have run into this limit at times
> too when involved in heated discussions involving lots of posts.

And it never once occurred to you that one of your opponents might have
discovered a way to engineer such an occurrence in order to stifle
dissenting opinions?

Anyway, I have absolute proof now -- a post by foobarbazqux (apparently
a PofN sockpuppet by the way) quite definitely contained code designed
to trick GG into thinking I wanted to crosspost my response. It only
showed me the name of one bogus extra destination group, but it
evidently spammed an unknown but large number of others, since the
limit in question was hit again almost immediately thereafter.

The issue is probably moot now, since I'll manually edit the newsgroup
list when responding to anything from either sockpuppet from now on,
and be a bit more alert for anyone else trying a similar tactic (who
will, of course, start to be suspected of being another of this loser's
sockpuppets upon being detected...)

> > As I'm sure I mentioned earlier in the thread,
> > my ISP stopped providing usenet access (to any of its customers,
> > apparently nationwide) but they did not reduce my monthly bill at all,
> > which means that whatever portion of that covered their costs is now
> > just going straight into their pockets.

> Way to over-simplify. You are becoming quite the conspiracy theorist.

I don't see any "over-simplification" here. They are still getting the
money in question, and they are not providing usenet service with it
anymore. Nor, to my knowledge, are they now using it to provide some
different service. There was no new feature added at the time they
removed usenet access; in fact, they also dropped web hosting(!) at
about the same time and told everyone to go use Yahoo. I let my small,
poorly-maintained and semi-abandoned site lapse rather than do anything
of the sort or pay for it to be hosted somewhere less bogus, of course.

Face it; they were simply being greedy.

> No one cares about your housing situation.

Rather arrogant of you to presume to speak for everyone who reads here,
especially given that that's potentially the entire population of the
planet. Who died and appointed you Secretary-General of the United
Nations, or whatever it is that you think that you are that would mean
that you had a jurisdiction that bloody huge?

Anyway, nobody's sticking a gun to your head and forcing you to read
anything I write (or reply, for that matter -- hint, hint).

Your "review" was simply a distortion of [continuation of untruths
snipped]

Fuck you. Now you've crossed a new line and more or less called me a
liar, and I have no other response to something like that; I won't
dignify it with a proper point-by-point rebuttal.

[I spent more time than you did]

Whoopee. I don't have as much time to waste here (and you're already
wasting way too damn much of it, and not even giving me a choice in the
matter) as you evidently seem to think I do, and especially not to open
eighty thousand browser tabs and fish around and google up references
to liberally sprinkle in my posts. I assume that everyone else here
besides you is smart enough to know how to browse their way up the
thread if they forgot anything -- easy with GG, and also with a proper
newsreader if they don't chuck all the old posts' headers.

> > > * You posted your original question, asking about bundling the
> > > application icon with the app.
> > > * Larry Barowski replied, suggesting the usual method of
> > > Class.getResource()I shall note here that by the time he did so I was already done
> > implementing the method I'd discovered via further googling, and busily
> > tweaking the icon itself in photoshop after a successful test.
> So that means after that point, advice is no longer accepted? After
> this point, advice to the contrary becomes bashing and hostility,
> apparently.

I never said that. I'm just pointing out that I didn't read that
particular message until later. That is to rebut the claim many have
implied and some have stated outright that I ignored that advice and
did something different out of pure bloody-mindedness. Of course,
making claims like that about my motivations and state of mind without
evidence *is* bashing and hostility...

> > I might have been clearer in the original post on that point; likewise
> > he might have read a bit more before jumping on that use of "URL",
> > whereupon my separate treatment (and non-neglecting) of the local
> > storage option would have become apparent to him.

> Jumping on? He was just trying to help, for God's sake! There was
> nothing negative about his post, he was trying to be helpful!

Are you blind? The post in question snapped "URLs can be to local files
too" rather bluntly as if this was some fact some backwards student
needed reminding of for the nth time, without bothering to read ahead.
How would *you* describe such a response?

The response was of a genuinely helpful intent, it would seem. One part
of it was somewhat undiplomatic though, and in hindsight assumes
additional significance as such.

> > No; that only started once I posted what I'd discovered using google to
> > the thread.
> [insult deleted] It started when you started acting that way.

"Acting that way"? Meaning "posting to comp.lang.java.programmer" I
suppose?

> It's not a misunderstanding. You're oversimplifying again. It is your
> approach as in, the approach you chose to use.

Stop accusing me of error. It is a misunderstanding, given that I (and
others) will read it as implying "your half-assed homebrew approach"
when they see "your approach". In any event, there's the niggling
little matter that calling it "my" approach attaches to me some sort of
responsibility for it, which doesn't actually exist since I knew of no
alternatives at the time in question. That perceived responsibility is
then used as a hook to hang attacks on; accusations of doing things
stupidly that obviously would fall flat otherwise. In light of the
purpose of framing the debate in that particular "you-oriented"
language the very use of such language, especially after being told not
to, carries significance on its own.

In fact, perhaps a big problem all along has been the use of
"you-language" which inextricably mixes up a software project and its
author, and makes an attack on either an attack on both. Using "you" at
the same time as criticizing an aspect of a project implicitly
criticizes the person too, and puts them on the defensive. When that
happens, it becomes darn hard to convince them of anything, not when
accepting what you're saying would mean accepting the implicit
criticism of their person too. So the use of "you" language is
monumentally stupid if you assume that a person's motive is to help,
but on the other hand it is quite logical if you suppose instead that
their motive is to attack someone. And that means, of course, that the
use or disuse of "you" language can itself be used to make educated
guesses about someone's motives ... yours, for instance.

> Not really. I once wrote a Sun developer article about web services,
> using the low level JAXM API to manually construct SOAP messages. It
> was mostly academic; in practice, nobody would use such an archaic and
> overcomplicated method. Sun developer articles are not always best
> practices. So no, no trouble brewing here.

I expect them to at least work, and (barring a single bug which their
test cases never triggered anyway) the one at issue here did.

I don't expect that the following should result in criticism, however:
* Having a problem
* Investigating with Google
* Eventually encountering a hit on sun.com describing a possible
solution
* Implementing this
* Having no more problem

I was damn surprised when criticism was the result. And, of course,
annoyed, particularly when the criticisms called it "my" approach and
thereby implicitly criticized *me* and not just the approach itself.
(That alone implicitly criticizes sun.com, which I also find startling
here.)

> That's your ego kicking in. He said nothing to make it sound that way,
> unless you were overly defensive to begin with.

You are not the judge of what is "overly" defensive. See above re: your
jurisdiction, which as far as I can tell so far extends precisely as
far as the four exterior walls of your home and to the tip of your
nose, the same as mine.

> How dare he deviate from your original question!! Oh yeah, you had
> mentioned the user's directory and he mentioned that in response to
> that.

You didn't mention this in your post, and I'm hard-pressed to remember
every detail of this excessively long thread that you insist on
perpetuating, so I only had what was in your posting to go on there.
Don't blame me for this. It is you who didn't give additional
information in that post, and it is you, to a significant extent, who
is making this thread so bloody long to begin with. (Count your
postings to this thread and then double that to include every reply
that I was forced to make if I was to counteract some insult or
another, less the first couple that were non-insulting thus
response-optional. The result's gotta be in the neighborhood of 40 by
now. And counting.)

> > Really? First of all, if I mentioned bashing it was because there was
> > bashing. (Unless, of course, you mean to call me a liar, on top of
> > everything else that I've been called lately.)

> I don't think you are a liar.

You more-or-less came right out and called me one about two pages up in
the interminable post this is a reply to. Either your memory is shorter
than a single posting (and you just implicitly attacked me for not
remembering *the whole thread word for word*) or you're a hypocrite.

> I think you were overly defensive from the beginning and as such, took everything as an
> attack against you

No. I only took as an attack anything that implied that the poster
questioned my competence, intelligence, honesty, or whatever.

To recap: after my detailing of the solution I found online, there
were, almost immediately, responses insisting that I explain my choice
of approach, and detail its advantages. This is the kind of response
I'd expect to get in a class at school after doing something dumb or,
at best, questionable; not in a newsgroup where the post in question
was of a "nothing more needs to be done here, move along" nature
indicating that no further assistance was required. (And when it's my
project, of course, it is I, not you, who decides if further assistance
is required.)

I would, at that point, have welcomed anything neutral (or better) and
constructive. Unfortunately, not even "neutral" was in the offing;
every response, *every last damn one of them* suggested, in front of an
audience, that I was doing something dumb; several of them challenged
me explicitly to provide evidence against such a claim.

If that isn't rude I don't know what is; basically what we had was "if
you don't quickly prove otherwise I will conclude that you're stupid
and everyone reading this is then advised to draw the same conclusion".

This is rather as if I'd done something innocuous and someone suddenly
unsheathed a sword and said "Engarde!", with a lunge sure to follow
shortly if I didn't take defensive actions.

The mystifying thing is ... why? I found some fix on the Internet for
my problem. So? If I'd waited for advice here and used it instead, I'd
still have found some fix on the Internet for my problem. In fact,
instead of it being from sun.com it would have been from a usenet
newsgroup; I know which is likely to be considered more credible by
most people.

I posted the details. Civilly and mainly to let people know the
original question wasn't in need of answering by anyone here after all.
That's courteous; I could have just been quiet and potentially left
someone busily researching away on my behalf, unaware that it was a
waste of time for them to continue.

Next thing I know: schoolteacher-type responses testing me, like "What
are the advantages of your approach?" I didn't come here to be lectured
at or, worse, asked patronizing questions! I'm six years out of
university, not some grade-school kid taking remedial math classes!
Grrrr!

*sigh* I doubt the exact, complex causes of this ... event will ever be
understood. Short of being able to read the minds of the initial
respondents, anyway. If I ever get one of them alone while I happen to
have access to sodium pentothal, maybe I'll find out >;-) but otherwise
it seems unlikely, unless someone remembers and chooses to divulge
their exact mindset at the time. Likely one of them actually instructs
a course in Java programming and went into "teacher and slow student"
mode without even thinking about it, and that set the tone of the whole
debate and created a handy template for subsequent responses, but that
is only ever likely to be an educated (so to speak) guess.

> We were discussing the approach to your problem, so of course we were
> asking about the advantages of your approach...

Why were "we" discussing it at all, once I made the post indicating I
had a working solution? Certainly not with the intention of solving the
problem, given that it no longer needed solving. I definitely did
nothing specifically to invite continued discussion. That doesn't mean
I wouldn't have welcomed a constructive response, but what I got was a
questioning/doubtful one, followed closely by an outright incredulous
one.

> And Oh No! People continued to question you??!!

By continuing to do so, they implied I'd done something wrong, or is
this somehow lost on you? (A post *suggesting* something else would
have been another matter, as long as it was civil.)

> It was an ongoing discussion, so what? Nobody forced you to come back
> and write the hostile replies that you did.

You seem to misunderstand the next sequence of events. Because my
competence had been publicly called into question it was my
responsibility to respond and set the record straight. To the poster
who'd asked what the advantages of "my" approach were, I responded with
not one but five that applied at least to the specific case in
question. (Later, it emerged that the other approach is superior in a
broad class of cases *not* including that one.) At no time did I
personally attack anyone; my responses were either statements or
questions of a largely factual nature.

> The fact that everyone in this thread is pretty much unanimously in
> agreement about your piss-poor attitude might tell you something about
> your tone, were you not so self-important to keep this going as is.

My tone is that of someone besieged unexpectedly and, yes, increasingly
annoyed by it.

And it is you who is "so self-important to keep this going as is". You
have not had your honor, competence, or anything of the sort
questioned; you could walk away from this right now without losing
anything. On the other hand, that choice is denied me every time
someone posts something that claims that I did anything wrong. I must
then respond and explain why that isn't true, or else continue to be
perceived as wrong by whoever sees the posting in question. (I think I
can safely assume that the worst of the people posting such things will
never be convinced, unfortunately.)

Every time I respond in my own defense, though, some jerk posts
something that undoes all of my hard work and suggests unkind things
about me again! It is clear that there is a deliberate pattern here,
that certain people simply will not quit doing so until I let one of
their attack posts stand unchallenged. Obviously though I *can* not
satisfy them without negative consequences (while they could easily
quit without negative consequences). Why do they -- why do *you* want
this? Why do you seem bound and determined to have some disparaging
claim about me be the last word in this thread? Especially when you
must realize by now that it is futile; I will not allow it to happen
and it is easily within my power to prevent your victory condition. The
game is a draw -- please just admit it and walk away, without stigma.

blmblm@myrealbox.com wrote:
> Is this the one that began with you asking ....  I forget, but the
> ensuing furor had much in common with this thread.

It wasn't one that began with *me* doing anything. Nor does anything I
may or may not have posted there have anything to do with either a)
java, b) application window icons, or c) the price of tea in China, so
it has no business in this thread regardless.

Bent C Dalager wrote:
> In article <1164606076.915898.158990@j44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> Twisted <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote:
> >Bent C Dalager wrote:
> >> If someone is trying to take over your computer via an HTML link...[snip]
> >
> >None of which is applicable to the *other* matter, which is that I just
> >plain don't have the spare time for clicking on every single link I
> >see.
>
> This raises the question of why you bother asking questions at all, if
> you're most likely not going to care about the answer anyway.

How did you infer this? Clearly, the logic you used was
faulty...perhaps you wrongly assumed that the only possible answers
would all take the form of links instead of such old-fashioned things
as words?

> There appears to be a general consensus on this newsgroup (and, indeed, in
> others that I follow) that the asker must expect to have to do a bit
> of legwork himself to get where he's going - no one else has the time
> to lead him there by hand.

I don't think my legwork can be faulted here. I ended up discovering a
solution before anyone posted here with one; to do this I used google.
Read the start of this thread if you don't believe me.

It's when links of no evident relevance are posted that I won't follow
them. (So link posters should make the relevance evident, or say
something in their own words. I'm quite happy with responses like
"There's a detailed explanation of foobar at
http://www.foo.com/bar.html" since it's fairly obvious what to expect
at the link, and that the "what to expect" is relevant (assuming I
asked about foobar).

In fact I've taken issue with people not furnishing a link where one
would be obviously useful and relevant, for example people repeatedly
singing the praises of a tool while consistently never mentioning any
further-reading or download URLs, particularly where the tool's name is
short and generic enough to be an unlikely candidate for googling.
(Whether googling it works anyway being immaterial of course; if it
doesn't look like it has any realistic likelihood of producing useful
results, nobody can reasonably be expected to try it.)

Aside from that, the only other time I take issue with links is when
someone drops a cryptic URL into a discussion with no explanation of
what to expect at the other end and nothing to indicate that it might
be relevant, and then at some later time if they decide the URL was
ignored blowing up at someone for not clicking on it.

On Nov 27, 8:53 am, "Twisted" <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote:
> And it never once occurred to you that one of your opponents might have
> discovered a way to engineer such an occurrence in order to stifle
> dissenting opinions?
Not really. I don't wear a tinfoil hat, though, so the mind-control
rays might have gotten to me.

> Fuck you. Now you've crossed a new line and more or less called me a
> liar, and I have no other response to something like that; I won't
> dignify it with a proper point-by-point rebuttal.
Oooooohhh, tough guy dropped the F-bomb! If you deduce from my post
that you are a liar, then so be it. I never uttered those words. And if
I were to label you as anything, "liar" is the furthest from my mind.

> Whoopee. I don't have as much time to waste here (and you're already
> wasting way too damn much of it, and not even giving me a choice in the
> matter)
I'm not giving you a choice? You could always not respond.

> eighty thousand browser tabs and fish around and google up references
> to liberally sprinkle in my posts.
You are truly the master of hyperbole.

> The post in question snapped "URLs can be to local files
> too" rather bluntly as if this was some fact some backwards student
> needed reminding of for the nth time, without bothering to read ahead.
> How would *you* describe such a response?
Wow, are you serious? You read that much from one sentence? Twisted,
you give yourself too much credit.



> > Not really. I once wrote a Sun developer article about web services,
> > using the low level JAXM API to manually construct SOAP messages. It
> > was mostly academic; in practice, nobody would use such an archaic and
> > overcomplicated method. Sun developer articles are not always best
> > practices. So no, no trouble brewing here.

> I expect them to at least work, and (barring a single bug which their
> test cases never triggered anyway) the one at issue here did.
As has been said many times before, "It just works" is a dangerous
practice in software development.


> I was damn surprised when criticism was the result. And, of course,
> annoyed, particularly when the criticisms called it "my" approach and
> thereby implicitly criticized *me* and not just the approach itself.
I've already explained this but you chose to ignore it. It's easier to
type "your approach" than to type "the approach you found on sun.com
while googling and had to hack a third party class to get working". As
I've also said many times, it was a discussion. Yes, it was critical,
because the approach you found on sun.com while googling and had to
hack a third party class to get working (happy now?) is less than
optimal.

> You are not the judge of what is "overly" defensive. See above re: your
> jurisdiction, which as far as I can tell so far extends precisely as
> far as the four exterior walls of your home and to the tip of your
> nose, the same as mine.
OK, so you're not overly defensive?
"This is the approach I found and implemented"
"Hm, did you consider doing it this other way? It's typically the way
to solve this problem. Does your approach have any advantage?"
"What!? How dare you criticize me, who do you think you are!? Why are
you challenging my competence??!"

> (Count your
> postings to this thread and then double that to include every reply
> that I was forced to make if I was to counteract some insult or
> another, less the first couple that were non-insulting thus
> response-optional. The result's gotta be in the neighborhood of 40 by
> now. And counting.)
I'm sorry, is there a limit to how many replies I should post in a
given thread?

> Either your memory is shorter
> than a single posting (and you just implicitly attacked me for not
> remembering *the whole thread word for word*) or you're a hypocrite.
OK, here we go again. Stop exaggerating. You KNOW I didn't attack you
for not remembering the whole thread word for word. I simply expected
you to at least remember the tone and content of the posts that put you
into this rage.

> To recap: after my detailing of the solution I found online, there
> were, almost immediately, responses insisting that I explain my choice
> of approach, and detail its advantages. This is the kind of response
> I'd expect to get in a class at school after doing something dumb or,
> at best, questionable; not in a newsgroup where the post in question
> was of a "nothing more needs to be done here, move along" nature
> indicating that no further assistance was required. (And when it's my
> project, of course, it is I, not you, who decides if further assistance
> is required.)
If you didn't want any more assistance, advice, discussion, or
whatever, why did you keep coming back to the thread? Oh, right,
because everyone was attacking you.


> I would, at that point, have welcomed anything neutral (or better) and
> constructive. Unfortunately, not even "neutral" was in the offing;
> every response, *every last damn one of them* suggested, in front of an
> audience, that I was doing something dumb; several of them challenged
> me explicitly to provide evidence against such a claim.
You are being completely absurd. Nobody challenged you. Asking what an
advantage is is not a challenge. It's a DISCUSSION. That's what this
newsgroup is for, DISCUSSION. Plenty of posts were neutral.  As for the
ones that suggested you were doing something dumb, well, it is because
you are doing something dumb.


> If that isn't rude I don't know what is; basically what we had was "if
> you don't quickly prove otherwise I will conclude that you're stupid
> and everyone reading this is then advised to draw the same conclusion".
No, that's the generalization you made.

> This is rather as if I'd done something innocuous and someone suddenly
> unsheathed a sword and said "Engarde!", with a lunge sure to follow
> shortly if I didn't take defensive actions.
*yawn* More hyperbole

>
> I posted the details. Civilly and mainly to let people know the
> original question wasn't in need of answering by anyone here after all.
> That's courteous; I could have just been quiet and potentially left
> someone busily researching away on my behalf, unaware that it was a
> waste of time for them to continue.
>

> Next thing I know: schoolteacher-type responses testing me, like "What
> are the advantages of your approach?" I didn't come here to be lectured
> at or, worse, asked patronizing questions! I'm six years out of
> university, not some grade-school kid taking remedial math classes!
You sure don't act like it.

> Grrrr!
Oooh! Growling over the Internets!

> Why were "we" discussing it at all, once I made the post indicating I
> had a working solution? Certainly not with the intention of solving the
> problem, given that it no longer needed solving. I definitely did
> nothing specifically to invite continued discussion. That doesn't mean
> I wouldn't have welcomed a constructive response, but what I got was a
> questioning/doubtful one, followed closely by an outright incredulous
> one.
You sir, are an idiot. The initial responses were plenty constructive.
They suggested alternatives and offered reasons why the approach you
found on sun.com while googling and had to hack a third party class to
get working was problematic. Instead of taking these into account, you
took them as some kind of challenge to your intelligence. So in this
case, you are certainly a liar, because you reacted with great
hostility to perfectly constructive responses.


> Because my competence had been publicly called into question it was my
> responsibility to respond and set the record straight.
A responsibility to your ego, maybe.

> To the poster
> who'd asked what the advantages of "my" approach were, I responded with
> not one but five that applied at least to the specific case in
> question. (Later, it emerged that the other approach is superior in a
> broad class of cases *not* including that one.) At no time did I
> personally attack anyone; my responses were either statements or
> questions of a largely factual nature.
Your responses didn't attack anyone, no. But they had a very sarcastic
tone, which isn't taken kindly on Usenet groups. That is why things
spiraled downward quickly after that.

> And it is you who is "so self-important to keep this going as is". You
> have not had your honor, competence, or anything of the sort
> questioned; you could walk away from this right now without losing
> anything. On the other hand, that choice is denied me every time
> someone posts something that claims that I did anything wrong. I must
> then respond and explain why that isn't true, or else continue to be
> perceived as wrong by whoever sees the posting in question. (I think I
> can safely assume that the worst of the people posting such things will
> never be convinced, unfortunately.)
While you say you have a responsibility to respond and explain why the
people "challenging" you are wrong, you still haven't said why the
disagreements are untrue. The only reason you've given for not trying
the getResource approach is that you're too damned lazy to learn
something new like Ant. And frankly, although I have taken some of your
overstatements of how long it takes to learn such things as
exaggeration, perhaps it calls your competence into question.

I can only imagine the can of worms I've opened with that one, but oh
well.


> Why do they -- why do *you* want
> this? Why do you seem bound and determined to have some disparaging
> claim about me be the last word in this thread? Especially when you
> must realize by now that it is futile; I will not allow it to happen
> and it is easily within my power to prevent your victory condition.
Haha, wow, way to be over-dramatic. A victory condition? It's a
discussion group, not a battle royale. *rolls eyes*


If this were an isolated incident, Twisted, I could see. But any other
discussion thread I've read from you in other groups has had a common
theme; someone disagreed with you and you got completely hostile.

-- 
jpa

> Anyway, I have absolute proof now -- a post by foobarbazqux (apparently
> a PofN sockpuppet by the way) quite definitely contained code designed
> to trick GG into thinking I wanted to crosspost my response. It only
> showed me the name of one bogus extra destination group, but it
> evidently spammed an unknown but large number of others, since the
> limit in question was hit again almost immediately thereafter.

Twisted, I really do find myself hoping you really are a very clever
troll, because some of things you post are simply beyond belief!

The response was crossposted to 'alt.usenet.kooks' because the poster
clearly belives that you are a 'kook'. The definition of which
(according the a.u.k FAQ) is...

"A TRUE net.kook has a special fascination derived from his/her/its
utter ineffability. Their behavior is irrational, if not downright
weird, but they are seldom merely boring."

.... a description that seems scarying acurate right now.

A simple crosspot (especially one done by somebody else) is not going
to flag you for a block. Another poster has explained that they too
have been affected by this blocking system during heated flurry posts.
Nobody outside google knows the exact rule that you are tripping but it
is clear to everyone else that this is what is happening.

You seem to be a master of the fallacy. You look for X, ignore occams
razor, find Y and therefore assume that X = Y. The fact that you
repeatedly mention 'logic' in your posts is amusing on this basis.

In total seriousness, if you really are believing what you are posting
and are not just some talented troll, I strongly recommend that you
consider seeking help for your paranoia. It really isn't normal to
build these conspiracy theories based on your own ego and really could
be a sign of bigger pyschological problems. You will, of course, accuse
me of taking a cheap shot, but It really isn't normal to be this
paranoid.

In article <1164637411.632942.51500@j72g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
Twisted <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote:
> blmblm@myrealbox.com wrote:

[ snipped portion of Twisted's earlier post restored ]

> > > one case involved
> > > some construct that had to be wrapped in something to work, but whoever
> > > posted it neglected to mention that fact; the n00b naturally just
> > > pasted the construct in without doing anything else and detonated his
> > > project into the next century, then logged on and detonated the
> > > newsgroup. It took weeks for that particular thread to die and it ended
> > > up with over 500 postings...
> >
> > Is this the one that began with you asking ....  I forget, but the
> > ensuing furor had much in common with this thread.
> 
> It wasn't one that began with *me* doing anything. 

My mistake, then.  Your description sounded a lot like a thread
that began with your posting a question and continued -- well,
much as you described.  On a quick search of Google's archives, the
one that matches my recollection has a subject line of "interesting
thing to try to do", but it has only 396 posts, not 500+, so perhaps
you meant a different thread.  Can you easily provide information
that would help me locate the thread you *did* mean?  

> Nor does anything I
> may or may not have posted there have anything to do with either a)
> java, b) application window icons, or c) the price of tea in China, so
> it has no business in this thread regardless.

Very true.  So why did you mention comp.text.tex?  I'm simply
responding to your comments, in a previous post, about that
newsgroup.

-- 
B. L. Massingill
ObDisclaimer:  I don't speak for my employers; they return the favor.

"Twisted" <twisted0n3@gmail.com> writes:

> None of which is applicable to the *other* matter, which is that I just
> plain don't have the spare time for clicking on every single link I
> see.

But you have time to argue with people who made the MISTAKE of trying
to help you?

<nebulous99@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1164414034.850115.255660@j72g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> The only "assumptions" I make
> are the guesses we all make given that none of us are omniscient.

    Not all of us make guesses whenever we don't know something. Some of us 
try to learn more about a given topic before forming an opinion on it.

    - Oliver 

"Twisted" <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1164411679.336179.214620@l39g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
> Oliver Wong wrote:
>> <nebulous99@gmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:1164297094.566614.115370@e3g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...
>> > Bent C Dalager wrote:
>> >> In article <1164288007.207992.244710@l12g2000cwl.googlegroups.com>,
>> >> Twisted <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> >Andrew Thompson wrote:
>> >> >> E.G. <http://www.physci.org/pc/jtest.jnlp>
>> >> >
>> >> >Sorry, I don't have any software on my system for interpreting .jnlp
>> >> >files, whatever those are. (And I *do* have software for the common 
>> >> >and
>> >> >even many of the more obscure formats for images, archives, and the
>> >> >like, just to put that into some sort of perspective...)
>> >>
>> >> You actually don't have a web browser?
>> >
>> > I have a web browser, but it's the bog-standard variety that
>> > understands .jpg, .gif, .png, .txt, .html, .shtml, .php, and
>> > directories, and a few others (notably .svg).
>>
>>     Most webbrowsers don't actually understand php or shtml. Typically, 
>> when
>> an URL ends with these extensions, they are actually serving HTML 
>> content.
>
> Entirely beside the point. An *unfamiliar* file extension generally
> means "little point in trying", since it usually leads to the save
> as... dialog and no clue what to do with the resulting file, or else to
> the "You are missing a required plugin" message (exact details
> regarding the latter vary by browser) and no idea what plugin or where
> it can be found or even whether one exists for that data type.

    First of all, when you say an "unfamiliar file extension", do you mean 
unfamiliar to you, or unfamiliar to the OS on your computer?

    Secondly, if your webbrowser is unable to open jnlp files, try 
re-installing the Java plugin for your browser. If that doesn't fix it, 
please state the name of your browser so that browser-specific advice may be 
given.

    - Oliver 

Twisted wrote:
> foobarbazqux@hotmail.com wrote:
> [snip]
>
> Oh, you're a PofN sockpuppet.

ROFL.

> I can tell, because you diddled your
> headers to make that last followup count as a twofer.

Prolix, s/as a twofer/twice/.

Check the headers on the posting of yours I responded to, You'll find
that any "diddling" of headers happened much earlier.

> (And in response to some of the nonsense elsewhere in this thread:
> VINDICATED!

Nonsense, Followups were set by PofN and you didn't notice (neither did
I). Followups are hardly "diddling".

> I have an explicit example now of one post being made to
> count for many. So much for the various improbable alternative
> explanations for the blocking that have been put forth --

Crossposting to two newsgroups may well be one more than is necessary
but is hardly at spammer levels, it's not even approaching typical
troll levels. If google thinks you are posting at spammer levels, that
is down to your inability to let even the mildest disparagement pass
you by.

> it is PofN
> and foobarbazqux@hotmail.com, who are probably the same person anyways,
> doing it,

You seemed so sure earlier. Having doubts?

> I TOLD you in response to your last steaming turd that I would dissect
> and analyze your postings to detect and neutralize your BS. Did you
> actually think I was bluffing? Idiot.

No, I think you are demonstrating yourself to be the latter.

> The only reason you succeeded
> with that last post was that I only noticed it was you cleverly
> disguised as a different idiot after it showed up as posting to two
> newsgroups when I'd obviously only clicked "reply" in one. And now, of
> course, I will neutralize any further attempts by "foobarbazqux" to do
> so in the future too.

ROFL, wrong target!

> Give it up.

Give what up? Poking trolls with blunt sticks?

> Either settle your disagreements with me using reasoned
> debate, or take a hike.

No thanks, I choose a third way. Others have demonstrated the futility
of the first. The second is less fun than poking trolls with a blunt
stick.

> Your underhanded tactics have been rendered
> ineffective, and

If I had any, they wouldn't have been. Since I don't, you're way off
target. PofN's followup setting was apt and amusing but hardly
"underhand".

> your insulting behavior and resorting to ad hominem
> attacks is childish, not to mention reeks of the desperation of a man
> who knows he's beaten.

Looked in a mirror?

nebulous99@gmail.com wrote:
> It can be complexified, for example in trivial ways like permitting
> someone to defend a third party; 

Oliver Wong is the Master!

<< bows to Master Wong >>

blmblm@myrealbox.com wrote:
> > It wasn't one that began with *me* doing anything.
>
> My mistake, then.  Your description sounded a lot like a thread
> that began with your posting a question and continued -- well,
> much as you described.

This *thread* began with me posting a question. The *hostility* didn't
begin with me doing anything. I did not throw the first punch.

>  On a quick search of Google's archives, the
> one that matches my recollection has a subject line of "interesting
> thing to try to do", but it has only 396 posts, not 500+, so perhaps
> you meant a different thread.  Can you easily provide information
> that would help me locate the thread you *did* mean?

I don't see how any thread other than this one is at all germane here.
Frankly, what I do elsewhere on the 'net is none of your fucking
business.

> Very true.  So why did you mention comp.text.tex?  I'm simply
> responding to your comments, in a previous post, about that
> newsgroup.

I was simply using it as an example for a newsgroup where attitudes
towards n00bs (and blatant attempts to sell them stuff) were worse than
here. Outside of that narrow scope, it is not material to this
discussion. Which, by the way, is over.

Tor Iver Wilhelmsen wrote:
> "Twisted" <twisted0n3@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > None of which is applicable to the *other* matter, which is that I just
> > plain don't have the spare time for clicking on every single link I
> > see.
>
> But you have time to argue with people who made the MISTAKE of trying
> to help you?

Have you not read *anything* else in the thread? Sheesh. Well, let me
educate you then.

I have no choice but to argue because people put my intelligence and
other personal qualities at issue and disparaged them. In order to not
have the negative effects this has remain, obviously I must reply and
explain in excruciating detail exactly why whatever they accused me of
is not true.

Of course, this leaves me even LESS time to spend clicking on links or
whatever else it is that you want me to do.

Also, trying to help me wasn't a mistake. Thinking that calling me
names was somehow "helping" me certainly was, if anyone thought that.
Calling my names was a mistake anyway, whatever the motivation.

Oliver Wong wrote:
>     Not all of us make guesses whenever we don't know something. Some of us
> try to learn more about a given topic before forming an opinion on it.

Not *everything* though.

If ten thousand links, unfamiliar tools or file types, or whatever get
mentioned in a day, I clearly don't have time to research more than a
fraction of them. The rest I must judge by their covers, so to speak,
in deciding what to do with them (if anything; usually this means doing
nothing with them).

More generally, if any of us looked in depth into everything that got
mentioned in our earshot, we'd spend precious little time doing
anything else.

ALL people use heuristics to judge what's immediately promising or
threatening and what looks like it can safely be ignored for now, just
in order to filter all the stuff that goes on around them down to
something manageable.

If people then get on my case for not having instantly and magically
perceived the otherwise-totally-unobvious relevance of foo, then they
have no case, so to speak.

Oliver Wong wrote:
>     First of all, when you say an "unfamiliar file extension", do you mean
> unfamiliar to you, or unfamiliar to the OS on your computer?

Unfamiliar to me; winamp for example has registered all kinds of
obscure file extensions I've otherwise never heard of. If I see one of
those later, I can only go by what I know to decide whether to not
bother trying to click on it; to go by what winamp knows would require
clicking on it, and doing so to decide whether to click on it is
obviously moronic.

In article <1164713588.733168.186010@l39g2000cwd.googlegroups.com>,
Twisted <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote:
> blmblm@myrealbox.com wrote:
> > > It wasn't one that began with *me* doing anything.
> >
> > My mistake, then.  Your description sounded a lot like a thread
> > that began with your posting a question and continued -- well,
> >