Java

Let's talk about Java and internationalization. Java makes a pretty clear point about being platform independent and so it's only logical to also try to keep user interfaces language neutral. When you read the Java I18N trail however, it more or less only tells you to use ResourceBundleS, but keeps rather quiet about best practice. What you are essentially left alone with are the four most important questions:

• What's a good naming scheme for keys?
• How do you organize the property files?

This is utmost annoying: Swing MDI has been around for ages and nowhere there's a decent, ready to use window placement algorithm to be found. I mean, I understand that there's no one size fits all solution to this problem, but you should at least expect some example code somewhere. The JDesktopPane class is pretty much useless if you are just going to pop up your JInternalFrameS at 0,0 and then expect the user to arrange them. Yet, nothing, zip, zilch that would even give you an idea of writing a window positionier.

Do you know this kind of situation? You get an email - A bug report for one of your applications and it kinda reads like: "Help, your app is broken - please fix it". Now it's your job to help the user figure out which application is meant (assuming your portfolio contains several) and more importantly, which version of that application s/he is actually using. A task, that usually includes sending back and forth a number of extra emails, just to explain how to gather the required information.

Six weeks without internet access can really cause you to do funny things. I for myself decided, to pass the time by finally rewriting an old project of mine, that was, to put it mildly, an embarrassment to show to anyone. I am still not quite finished with it yet, but since I haven't been able to blog for a while and there are always people searching for code examples, solving common problems, I guess, I could as well work some snippets into blog posts.

Instructions for fixing broken file bindings for Java under Microsoft Windows.

Problem description: Java application (single .JAR file) does not start, when double clicked / Clicking the JAR file just opens a directory view, in which no executable file can be found.

Today in the "can't be that hard to code" category: parsing email addresses.

Boss comes in and tells you, that some Java project will now allow the user to submit an email address. It is your task to write the sanity checks, rejecting anything, that is not compliant with the address specification found in RFC 2822. Oh, and by the way, the customer does not have the JavaMail API installed and cannot be brought to do so. Meaning, you have to re-invent the wheel.