Andreas Falley

Want to know about Big Oh?
Buy "Introduction to Algorithms" by Corman, Leiserson
and Rivest. It's a classic. It's one of the main text books for both undergrad and graduate computer science classes at Rutgers University
(and many other great schools).
Another place to find out about the Big Oh is reading
Maxim or Penthouse.... but that's a whole different "Big Oh"!

Not even human resource or other folks at Sun?

After reading the post regarding the value of a high score or just passing (Here)
I am wondering who actually sees the score? If I apply to Sun as a programmer, do they look up the score and know exactly how I did? Do they call up folks that score 100% and say "we want you"?
Just wondering.....

There's something that I don't understand. I've been studying for the scwcd using the Deshmukh book.
In the sample code that they provide, they set the
jsp:root xmlns:jsp="http://java.sun.com/JSP/Page"
version="1.2"
But I don't have my linux box (where I code from) online, yet the code runs fine. Indeed, it looks like
Sun doesn't have the page online either.
What is the use of the attributes in this tag? Is any info in the root tag really manditory? It seems to work fine with tomcat4 without the info.
What's going on? Or is tomcat4 just smarter than other servers?
Many thanks!
- Andreas
[LIST]

Hi there! I just passed my Programmer exam yesterday and am already thinking about my next step.
The question is, should that be the web component exam or the developer exam. Specifically what is more "marketable"?
I had one person tell me that web components and all things j2ee are where it's at in the market and being able to demonstrate your knowledge with that is important, but I've had another person tell me that the developer exam says more about you because it's more substantial an inquiry into your skills as a programmer since the web component exam is just a mulitple choice exam and employers want evidence of being able to think through a project than being able to pass a quiz.
Any thoughts?
-Andreas

Hi there! I just passed my Programmer exam yesterday and am already thinking about my next step.
The question is, should that be the web component exam or the developer exam. Specifically what is more "marketable"?
I had one person tell me that web components and all things j2ee are where it's at in the market and being able to demonstrate your knowledge with that is important, but I've had another person tell me that the developer exam says more about you because it's more substantial an inquiry into your skills as a programmer since the web component exam is just a mulitple choice exam and employers want evidence of being able to think through a project than being able to pass a quiz.
Any thoughts?
-Andreas

How exactly is it different? Different notes? Different note lengths? Is the byte count in the new file accurate? Did you check the edited
file against the other file in a hex editor? You should be able to look at the hex code and know exactly what each and every byte is doing in terms of MIDI code in each file.
Unlike a wave file, every byte in a MIDI is parsable in manner that you can speak about if you understand the MIDI file spec. well enough. Every element of a MIDI file has a behavior in the output that it's controlling (as opposed to just being raw data). Just be patient with it and learn how to read the file.
Technically, you could hum a midi file just by looking at it, like a trained musician can look at music on a staff and hum it....but I would be somewhat scared of anyone who actually could do that!
[ April 20, 2002: Message edited by: Andreas Falley ]

It seems like Sun has been very slow to provide really great audio functionality and support, although looking at the new media api, it seems like they are coming along in their newest release. Still they aren't near to catching up with the state of the art of support found in professional audio software or hardware, where 24-bit processing, 96KHz rates and surround sound are common.
There are also some issues regarding unsigned data types in .wav files (with possible work-arounds)
See http://www.javaranch.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=002777
There's also big-endian / little-endian conversion
issues that you have to worry about (not that big a deal).
It's a shame to say it still seems like c/c++ rules the day with audio processing (and I LOVE JAVA), not to mention cool things like Steinberg's
C++ based VST SDK. All that said and done, Sun is making improvements in this department. If they figure out a way to compete directly with DirectX support, they might win in this area. I hope they do.
Funny, when I am in the computer book section of Barnes and Noble, I am always hard pressed to see many books on audio manipulation software compared to image manipulation software, and likewise few books on audio programming compared to image processing even. Fewer yet geared to Java. Maybe the web is so image-based and all that p2p stuff has made audio such a hot potato now or maybe it's because music and musicians are rarely taken seriously by most non-music types unless an artist has a hit. Imagine...your daughter is marrying a musician. Ok, now she tells you his name is Billy Joel or Bruce Springsteen. See what I mean?
Anyhow, who really knows why this is the case with audio programming? But I hope that Java will some day become robust enough to be the language / environment of choice for any project, even pro-audio studio software.
Your project definitely sounds worthy to me. Good luck with it!
-Andreas
[ March 27, 2002: Message edited by: Andreas Falley ]
[ March 27, 2002: Message edited by: Andreas Falley ]

Hi, a few years ago I wrote a program in C that did various bits of processing on a wave file. Originally I wanted to use Java but a part of the file format for a 8-bit wave file contains a stucture that is based on various unsigned types:
typedef struct {
ID chunkID;
long chunkSize;
short wFormatTag;
unsigned short wChannels;
unsigned long dwSamplesPerSec;
unsigned long dwAvgBytesPerSec;
unsigned short wBlockAlign;
unsigned short wBitsPerSample;
/* Note: there may be additional fields here, depending upon wFormatTag. */
} FormatChunk;
My questions are these:
How do you deal with such file format constraints in Java?
Is it just that "well, some things are better suited for some languages and others for other languages"?
Why are there no unsigned longs and shorts in Java? Doesn't it make sense for Java to incorporate these, especially as it tries to be so ubiquitous in so many different ways. Even the audio api isn't all that robust since it doesn't allow for 16 bit or larger wave files or surround sound etc.; it seems there are a such a wide range of applications (look at the pro-audio section of any music store) that java is missing out on. I had hoped that in new versions of Java unsigned types would be incorportated. What's up with that?
Thanks in advance!
-Andreas
[ March 19, 2002: Message edited by: Andreas Falley ]

There was a company called DigiScents in Oakland CA that had created a customised atomizer (they called it the "IScent Personal Scent Synthesizer")that contained a set number of scented oils that functioned as "primitive scents" that could be combined in order to create an entire range of smells and it could interface with web pages via
a xml-based (I believe) markup language. I remember reading about it and seeing some tv news clips about it when they first came out. I believe
they even wanted to partner with RealAudio, to have "streaming scents".
I don't know how accurate it was from a food
chemistry stand-point, but it sure was a cool idea. I think they had about a 100 different scents, but I never smelled any of them.
Why send flame somebody, when you can just send
a fart!

It's a shame they went out of business.
-Andreas

Thanks guys. I guess I was hoping that it might be like a exam at school. I mean, sure one false in a huge && conditional test yields a false....but heck, it just doesn't seem fair when you can prove you know that at least some answers are correct.
Oh well, better to adapt to the exam's reality than complain about it!

Every now and then on Marcus Green's mock exams I find myself getting several of the correct answers on a multiple answer question but missing one. Are these the type of questions that are on the real exam, and if so, is "partial" credit given if you get one or more right and miss an answer that is also correct?
Thanks in advance!