John Ipe

We had numerous discussions and meetings to review our use cases, and everything seemed fine. We even had the test cases reviewed before developing the code. Once the deliverable (part of the working application) was demonstrated, most of the use case was indeed "validated". But only after seeing the demo did the customer realize that certain things he approved in the Use Case didn't really work that way. And then we reworked it.

Now whenever I'm in a discussion, I'm aware that I have to be really sharp to make sure that everybody knows exactly what they are agreeing to. Handing out paper where they can draw things out or confirm pencil drawings I've made seems to help too (as opposed to the Visio drawings I showed in the beginning where people seemed to be just intimidated by it and not really giving me much feedback). Learnt from Alistair Cockburn that the "roughness" of a pencil sketch gives the customer the assurance that they can change it, that it is only thoughts in progress, a tool for feedback (as opposed to a Visio document all neatly laid out with its boxes and connectors).

So, as others have already said, try and get to working code as quickly as possible. The UC is just a starting point, at least for me, approval did not mean that it wouldn't change (and hence affect the whole development time frame).

Take care.

Hi Sam,
I may be missing something, but where are you initializing fullCommand before calling exec?

Wow! Thrilled is the word!
Thank you Thomas! And McGraw-Hill!
Congratulations to Ilja, Ko Ko and Ben! Ko Ko, I just knew you'd win! It was great to be here, Cindy's not the only one who thinks this is the best forum in the saloon!
Most of all, it was truly a privilege to be on the same forum with Herbert Schildt! And I'm sure I'd say the same for you Mr. James, as soon as I'm done reading your book!
God bless!

if you mean you want to pass parameters to the batch file from the java pgm, you could append those as Strings after the batch file name:
rt.exec("cmd.exe /c mybatchfile.bat" + " " + param1 + " " + param2);
and your batch file would read param1 and param2 with %1 and %2 respectively. is this what you needed?
regards

Runtime rt = Runtime.getRuntime(); rt.exec("cmd.exe /c <batch file name>");
what did you mean by "initiate the dos batch command"?
regards

Originally posted by Jacky Chow:
os.close(); ObjectInputStream is = new ObjectInputStream(new FileInputStream(f)); obj = (Test)is.readObject(); System.out.println(obj.a+","+obj.b);
In this program, the output of 2nd println(...) is "0,0" as expected, but if the fields changes to
final transient int a = 10; static transient int b = 20;
then the 2nd println(...) is (10, 20), even this result is also expected by me.
What I want to know is how does the serialization mechanism work if we use final and static with transient

if you were to modify the static variable b after you serialize your object, but before you read from your serialized object, it would print the modified value of b. this is because there is only one copy of the variable associated with the class and you are running this in the same runtime.
but if you were to modify the static variable b and then read your serialized object in a separate runtime, it will show you the value you serialized and not the modified value.
as for final transient, it appears that final simply overrides transient, because a final variable cannot be set once the class is created. so assigning it a default value of 0 because it is an integer wouldn't be possible?
regards

all would be true!
(if you first compiled it with t.s1, t.s2 etc)

Originally posted by chi Lin:
For efficiency, you can use java.nio package for copy.
e172 of Java almanac 1.4
[/CODE]

very neat! Corey, I guess you'd want to go with this then?

would it be an option for you to use Runtime.exec(). you could specify your OS's copy command in the parameter? and if the destination directory is a network drive that's mapped locally, it should still work?
hope i understood you right!
regards

and thank you for your response, it's my day that's been made!

Originally posted by Herb Schildt:

IMO the software is the main hold-up, but this, too, will come.

is java being considered at all for these systems? do you think real-time java will have a role to play?

Originally posted by Herb Schildt:

we need software that enables a robot to operate in a human environment. We are only starting to achieve this. However, I thinks that it is, in part, only a matter of time and resources.

are you talking of the need to teach a robot about the physical frailties of homo sapiens so they don't crush us or something like that? is this largely what human computer interaction research is all about? so far i've only heard of java playing a role with GUIs for HCI... is there more that java is/will soon be doing on this front?
regards
john

Originally posted by Ashok C.M.:
can u tell me of some other "SPECIAL" stuff that can be done using java?

i don't know if these are considered special, but i find them interesting:
jxta
real-time java (not to mean that everything will now run like lightning, but in a defined response window, every time).
looking at the very wide range of APIs made available in java, either through the javax packages or other implementations, the possibilities seem almost endless. like medical imaging systems using the 3D API etc
Sun maintains a page for industry stories, can't find the link now, wonder if it's broken...

Originally posted by Herb Schildt:
I believe that we are on the leading egde of a revolution in robotics. Just as the Internet changed the world a decade ago, the mainstream use of robotics will change the world again -- in the relatively near future. This is great news for us programmers!

Can you tell us what it is that has brought us to this point of advancement in robotics? And how can programmers be poised to serve the need when it arises? Wouldn't this be something more for those who work with control systems than application developers? Would be glad to hear more or be pointed to the resources you are referring to!
Regards
John
PS. I used your "ANSI C Made Easy" as one of my first programming books, still have fond memories of that book so many years later. God bless your contributions to this industry, and thus to this world. Truly the world owes a great debt to those who teach, and teach well. (And I'm not just saying this!)

here's a full list of what you can do with reflection from the reflection trail in the java tutorial:
With the reflection API you can:
-Determine the class of an object.
-Get information about a class's modifiers, fields, methods, constructors, and superclasses.
-Find out what constants and method declarations belong to an interface.
-Create an instance of a class whose name is not known until runtime.
-Get and set the value of an object's field, even if the field name is unknown to your program until runtime.
-Invoke a method on an object, even if the method is not known until runtime.
-Create a new array, whose size and component type are not known until runtime, and then modify the array's components.

Originally posted by aminur rashid:
So what is reflection in java and its use???

reflection is used mostly in tool development, such as class browsers, debuggers etc. when you want to retrieve information about classes and objects at runtime.
here's a good link:
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library/j-dyn0603/

Thank you Ilja!
Still learning, and miles to go! Many, many miles!!