Mark, I could not agree more. Maybe it's the old "Java = Cutesy Applet" mentality. I thought we got past that with J2EE?!! I guess not. :-(
Besides this, AWT (and many Swing libraries too) are not very well designed, and the layout managers are very confusing for beginners who end up so frustrated, that they instead get a trial version of JBuilder to slap their UI together. So really, other then hooking up listeners with anonymous inner classes (which may or may not be a great design in itself, but that's another topic entirely) the only thing that beginners learn from Swing exercises is to rely on expensive software to build bad UI. And one more nail in the coffin, regardless of having to learn Swing as beginners, very few Java people actually use it in their daily work -- Servlets are so much more common.
I had better teachers though, so I fondly remember building a System.out.println based scrabble game (at 3am Monday morning, as it was due that day :-> ) as one of the first and very fun Java OO exercises.
Just my $0.02 worth.
Greg
-----Original Message-----
From: M. E. Zawadzki [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, February 26, 2003 10:47 AM
To: jdjlist
Subject: [jdjlist] Re: where is the manual ????
I find fault w/ many instructors in that Swing (or AWT) is brought up *much* too early. I can
infer from Tim that the Swing API is pertinant to what he has me assigned. A scientist here (I
work for Merck Pharmaceuticals) is taking a night course in java , and is pestering :-) me about
Swing. Note that this is an *introductory* class and it was only the second week of instruction!
--- Greg Nudelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > At the moment -- I am trying to learn about Swing (as a preference over
> the
> > AWT as advised on this list) -- particularly about buttons and about
> Layouts.
>
> I'm glad you're digging, but don't worry about Swing untill you got some
> basics under your belt. It is much more important to understand basic Java
> concepts and software engineering ideas and try them hands on. Just get a
> good begginer's book like Java 2 by Horton or Core Java by Sun press and
> work through the exercises. I think you'll find Swing (and AWT) very
> frustrating, but if you're interested, go for it.
>
> Greg
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