[arch-projects] Dead list

[Andy Roberts]

On Friday 20 May 2005 18:29, Dusty Phillips wrote:
> I can't believe I go offline for a few weeks and you guys let this
> list die. Shame on all of you. I thought I was the only one that
> wasn't working on any projects lately. Well, not true. I'm working on
> a website, and I'm getting paid to do it... I haven't been working on
> any interesting projects besides ordering a new computer. I'm going to
> be joining the AMD64 porting project sometime. ;-)
>
> And until then, Ensmer is on hold. What is everybody else doing lately, eh?
>

I'm still working on my first proper Java GUI app. It's been taking me a 
while. It's called aConCorde and is useful for language analysis - with 
particular emphasis on Arabic language processing, which is hard even when 
you speak the language (which I don't!) Fortunately, Java makes that kinda 
thing ok - it's just learning all the Swing models, components and threads, 
etc. (Oops, sorry for rambling!)

During my time learning Swing, I began to realise that many of the well known 
Java "facts", i.e., Java is slow and ugly, are in fact false. I'm not saying 
that Java is the fastest thing out there, but it's fast enough! Also, 
looks-wise, well, it's not great by default but can be replaced with 
something decent very easily. See my recent article on OSNews about this if 
you care :P:P I was in fact embarking on a series of interviews with a number 
of key Java people, including a few Sun engineers. The aim was to cover what 
the state of play is with Java on the desktop: performance, looks, 
deployments, SWT, rich clients etc, etc. Managed to get the big names 
interested, but they could only fit it in several months in the future :( So, 
I've just started writing articles about these topics instead! Man, need to 
shut up...


> On a more personal note, I have been accepted into the graduate
> program at York University. Apparently I'm going to be able to play
> with some cutting edge VR equipment. I hope that means I can take
> Ensmer into another dimension, as it were. Should be interesting
> times... only less time for Arch now, between having a summer job and
> a 5 term full time student program ahead of me. :(
>

I take it you mean York, Canada? If you were going to York, UK, then I'd be 
nextdoor in Leeds. Good luck where-ever. I'm doing a PhD at Leeds and man, 
it's tough - but fun too!


Andy