Without firing up your Java compiler, guess if the following class will compile: interface $^A {} where "^A" is the character whose ASCII value is 1. (You enter it as ^V^A in vi or C-q C-a in Emacs.)

Without firing up your Java compiler, guess if the following class will compile: interface $^A {} where "^A" is the character whose ASCII value is 1. (You enter it as ^V^A in vi or C-q C-a in Emacs.)

First the goods. The official Debian 4.0 contains Sun JDK 5 in its non-free section. To get it, you edit /etc/apt/sources.list to enable the non-free repository, and then run apt-get install sun-java5-jdk. Here's my /etc/apt/sources.list (with my changes high-lighted in red): # # deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 r0 _Etch_ - Official amd64...

First the goods. The official Debian 4.0 contains Sun JDK 5 in its non-free section. To get it, you edit /etc/apt/sources.list to enable the non-free repository, and then run apt-get install sun-java5-jdk. Here's my /etc/apt/sources.list (with my changes high-lighted in red): # # deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 r0 _Etch_ - Official amd64...

Now that I've switched to Debian 4.0, I'm interested in getting the Sun Java 6 packages installed. If I recall correctly, there was quite a stir during JavaOne when the Ubuntu folks announced that some of Sun's Java products (the JDK, NetBeans and Glassfish) are available in their apt repositories and can be installed with a...

Now that I've switched to Debian 4.0, I'm interested in getting the Sun Java 6 packages installed. If I recall correctly, there was quite a stir during JavaOne when the Ubuntu folks announced that some of Sun's Java products (the JDK, NetBeans and Glassfish) are available in their apt repositories and can be installed with a...

My Fedora 7 Upgrade did not go well (some stupid video driver issue). So I wiped the disk and installed Debian 4.0r0. Now you debian fans out there, especially those who says "You should be running Debian, the truly free operating system," will endure some of my stupid questions: Q1: How do I start the SSH server? How do I configure...

My Fedora 7 Upgrade did not go well (some stupid video driver issue). So I wiped the disk and installed Debian 4.0r0. Now you debian fans out there, especially those who says "You should be running Debian, the truly free operating system," will endure some of my stupid questions: Q1: How do I start the SSH server? How do I configure...

(Via James Strachan's Blog) Joy of Tech: The Joy of Tech comic

(Via James Strachan's Blog) Joy of Tech: The Joy of Tech comic

Tonight's St. Louis JUG meeting is a fun one. Tom Wheeler, the award winning member of the NetBeans community, was on hand to talk about the NetBeans Platform. Tom is a very eloquent presenter. That, coupled with the fact that Tom has been using the NetBeans Platform for two years, made this presentation a valuable one. The presentation...

Tonight's St. Louis JUG meeting is a fun one. Tom Wheeler, the award winning member of the NetBeans community, was on hand to talk about the NetBeans Platform. Tom is a very eloquent presenter. That, coupled with the fact that Tom has been using the NetBeans Platform for two years, made this presentation a valuable one. The presentation...

(I attempted to comment on Angsuman Chakraborty's blog entry GCJ is Dangerously Buggy, but the blog is not taking comments.) I ran Angsuman's code (essentially "System.out.println(new java.util.Date());") with the up-to-date GCJ on Fedora Core 6 and it produced the correct result, not the wrong result as Angsuman claimed...

(I attempted to comment on Angsuman Chakraborty's blog entry GCJ is Dangerously Buggy, but the blog is not taking comments.) I ran Angsuman's code (essentially "System.out.println(new java.util.Date());") with the up-to-date GCJ on Fedora Core 6 and it produced the correct result, not the wrong result as Angsuman claimed...

Elliotte Harold: As for new features in the language, most attendees were lukewarm at best, even when discussing sexy topics like closures. To the extent that the Java language wasn't meeting their needs, most attendees seemed to prefer learning a a new language entirely, such as Scala, rather than adding more features to the Java...