learning java

[timk at jtse.com (Tim King)]

Duane Morin <dmorin at lear.morinfamily.com> wrote:
> But I gotta say, somebody doesn't declare an array properly and i'm gonna 
> ask "When's the last time you wrote Java code?"

Good point. I have to admit, though, that this one had me stumped, until 
you wrote the above. And I last wrote Java yesterday. :-) I believe I 
even did something involving an array yesterday.

Unfortunately, the fact is that whenever I do any programming in any 
language, I keep the API docs and language specs on hand. (Google seldom 
enters into it.) Because there are so many basic libraries and API's 
nowadays, and each language has its own conventions, it's almost 
impossible for me to keep them straight in my mind. And even sometimes 
conventions in a single language differ widely. (For example, to get the 
number of elements of an array, use array.length; to get the number of 
elements of a List, like a Vector, use list.size().) Put these all in 
the same brain along with C++, C, Python, and Perl, and there are going 
to be a few references to the API spec.

-TimK