Re: The invokeLater loop

From:

Daniel Pitts <newsgroup.nospam@virtualinfinity.net>

Newsgroups:

comp.lang.java.programmer

Date:

Fri, 10 May 2013 12:18:15 -0700

Message-ID:

<YJbjt.18$fS4.15@newsfe08.iad>

On 5/10/13 11:54 AM, Stefan Ram wrote:

   I invented what I call the ?invokeLater loop?:

class Object implements java.lang.Runnable
{ int i = 0;
   public void run()
   { java.lang.System.out.println( i++ );
     javax.swing.SwingUtilities.invokeLater( this ); }}

public class Main
{ public static void main( final java.lang.String[] args )
   { javax.swing.SwingUtilities.invokeLater( new Object() ); }}

   What is it good for?

   Maybe it provides a way to loop while still allowing
   Swing events to be processed in parallel? (So you do not
   always have to spawn another thread besides the EDT.)

   One also might see it as a kind of recursion that will not
   overflow that stack. But since it does not atually nest
   incarnations, it is not really adopted for recursive programming.

A few comments:

That's isn't really a new invention.

It isn't recursive.

It encourages coupling the application logic to the UI environment.

It is a good way to eat up CPU cycles if you don't want to have your CPU
go idle. Also known as a laptop warmer.

It doesn't take advantage of concurrent processing capabilities of most
modern systems, ultimately slowing down both your EDT and your
application processing.

It is more error prone and harder to tune than using a SwingWorker.

Unrelated to the point you made Stefan, I feel I should make a note on
Stefan Ram(TM) convention. When I see "new Object()", and it isn't
referring to java.lang.Object, it takes me 10 times as long to
understand what the code is doing. I literally stared at that for 3 or 4
seconds before it clicked that you were using confusing class names and
hoping your abstruse convention would "clarify" the confusion.