Re: Looking For Direction
Arne Vajh??j wrote:
x86-64 hardware
Multi-core
Linux - Centos or Debian
Oracle or an open source database - MySQL or PostgreSQL
I am not fond of MySQL. Oracle is an excellent product but only handles one
CPU, 1 GB RAM and 4 GB data in its free version. Postgres is simply marvelous.
Java 1.6
Eclipse or NetBeans IDE
or JDeveloper
fat client in Swing or web app using JSF and Tomcat server
JSF/facelets is very cool if you go the web-app route.
would be a good mainstream Java based solution utilizing
your current skill set.
Since your Java skill set is old [1], JC, get /Effective Java/, 2nd ed., by
Josh Bloch (get those cheapskates at work to buy it for you). It'll pay for
itself many times over in the trouble it prevents you.
Browse around the articles in www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/, too.
[1]
For Gosh' sake, Visual Caf??? Java isn't even that language any more.
There've been three major shifts in the language since then - Java 1.2, Java
1.4 and Java 5, all of which are officially obsolete now - and many, many
enhancements to the API. Not to worry, between the tutorials on java.sun.com
and /Effective Java/ and your native intelligence and programmer's mindset you
should be just fine.
Words to the wise:
Since Java 1.1, there've been changes to the memory model (the way that
threads share data), there's a new Collections framework, generics (well
explained in /Effective Java/, see the free chapter from
<http://java.sun.com/docs/books/effective/>), and synchronization, allocation
and just about everything else have gotten much faster.
Don't ever use java.util.Vector or java.util.Hashtable again. Use another
java.util.List or java.util.Map implementation, respectively, instead. For
basic use, java.util.ArrayList and java.util.HashMap are the usual suspects.
--
Lew