The joy of Java

I’m taking a class in programming languages and recently we had a home work assignment that involved writing a C++ program (to deal with multi-dimensional arrays, pointers, etc.). It has been a while since I’ve written any C++ code, so this was quite an experience. I managed to more-or-less get the program done, and at the end of it all, I had an overwhelming thought: I’m glad I work in Java. C++ is fun in its own way, but the whole time I was coding I kept feeling like I was doing something wrong with all of the jumping around in memory locations, and playing with pointers. In Java, you just don’t do those types of things. Also, every time I ran into an error, it seemed to be pointer related. I haven’t had to use the debugger to look at memory locations in a loooooong time. I really like the secure feeling that Java gives me when I’m working in it. I also feel like I’m more productive, but that could be a result of being more “current” with Java’s libraries, vs. C++’s libraries. Also, as an odd note: I never understood why all the Mac developers talk up TextMate so much and how it works great with Xcode. After spending this last homework working with the default editor in Xcode, I totally see why. Any editor that asks me “Are you sure you want to undo?” when I press Ctrl-Z (or Cmd-Z in the case of Macs) instantly looses about 50 points in my book. Add on to that there seemed to be no auto-completion for classes built in (or at least turned on) and it makes the IDE pretty poor in my view. The rest of Xcode seems pretty good, but that editor sucks and has got to go. It looks like I will need to search for a decent editor that can work with Xcode. (I tried TextMate, and its missing some feature I feel I need.)