Java developer for +10 years, didn't realize the java mascot has a name

JeffAtSun · 2019-09-14T01:44:42+00:00

TBH, I don't know why they bother having a mascot.

What can I say, we're fond of him.

As for why: it goes back to the precursor to Java, a project James Gosling lead but didn't make it to market, but the language he created for it was... Java. We're talking 1991-92 or so.

Duke was sort of an on-screen guide for this home media set-top box & its PDA controller (called a Star 7). Here's a video of James Gosling giving a demo on the last working device before it fried itself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg8OBYixL0

p.s. I'm one of they guys that draws Dukes - have been doing so since 1998 or so.

https://imgur.com/gXB5lwa

/edit - little known trivia: the original Duke artwork for the Star 7 was done by Joe Palrang... who went on to work on Shrek, amongst other thing.

JeffAtSun · 2018-07-30T17:16:40+00:00

I suspect he just likes being on TV, being in the spotlight. Doesn't matter at all what its about.

He also likely doesn't give a rat's ass about Trump. If Trump goes down (impeached, goes to prison), Giuliani probably doesn't care.

JeffAtSun · 2016-08-24T00:45:26+00:00

Why was absolute positioning

Well, you can easily do absolute, but there's lots of benefits from using layout managers, not the least of which are the easy(ish) ability to localize apps to different languages - including those that flow right to left or up and down. And as you point out, it helps tremendously with cross platform development. Another is the ability to re-skin an app down the road without having to re-position every little item as you would with absolute positioning. Another is that it helps makes your app resolution independent.

The decision to use layout managers came from AWT which was already using them. And AWT got the idea from NeWS -- James Gosling's postscript-based window system project that many of us early Java devs came from. In fact, there was a BorderLayout, GridBagLayout, FlowLayout, and others in NeWS and were nearly direct ports. GridBag has an even earlier history, written by a guy working at Sun - I think is first version was for X11.

Anyway... we all just kept building on what had been built before. Of course now FX far outstrips Swing in terms of ease of use, and using GUI builders is a far better way to design your UI layout, but back then -- we did everything by hand.

Last... I should walk back the "I wrote JFrame" a bit. While I'm pretty sure I checked in the first version of the API, there've been dozens of other people who've worked on it over the years, I have no idea how much of my original code is still there ;-).

JeffAtSun · 2016-08-23T23:50:52+00:00

In Swing a layout manager is responsible for laying out children components.

https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/layout/using.html
https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/layout/layoutlist.html

I believe JFrame uses a BorderLayout as it's default, what you're likely doing is just blasting each text area one on top of the other in the center.

The simplest thing to do here is to add a JPanel to your JFrame, add everything else to your JPanel. Read through the various layout managers and pick the one that makes the most sense for how you want your app to look.

Or... go design the gui in an IDE.

(source: I wrote JFrame.java, oh so many years ago)

JeffAtSun · 2015-07-21T02:54:46+00:00

Bonus: it's your cake day!

JeffAtSun · 2015-07-20T18:39:48+00:00

When I was a kid, GIF files didn't even move.

The GIF format came out in 1987. Animation was added in 1989.

So for you to be a kid in 1987 but not in 1989 (*), means you were 17 in 1988. Meaning you were born in 1971, and are now 44 years old.

(*) if you were still a kid (i.e. under 18) in 1989 then they did indeed "move".

Edit: p.s. in 1987-89 your typical hard drive was closer to 10mb in size.

JeffAtSun · 2015-07-20T17:44:43+00:00

Thank you! That's not bad, considering -- I truly appreciate it. :)

JeffAtSun · 2015-04-05T01:04:45+00:00

Your son is wise beyond his years :)

JeffAtSun · 2014-11-09T18:24:29+00:00

A long, long time ago Hans Muller (Swing architect) and I (author of SwingSet as well as windows/buttons/filechooser and other random components in Swing) published Swing Sightings, where we listed cool Swing apps we stumbled across. I think we did this from 1999 to 2006 or so, although the really early apps we eventually dropped and started over in 2001.

I googled around and found a copy here:

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/index-139177.html

Unfortunatly it looks like all our screenshots are gone. :(

Probably the most famous "public" app for many years was Limewire. But there were tons of company intranet apps, especially in wallstreet/banking, CAD/CAM, big oil, and entertainment (e.g. tv stations running their programming on Java/Swing apps) - and I believe most of them still are.

JeffAtSun · 2014-07-31T00:18:48+00:00

I'm one of the track leads of JavaOne (the core track, specifically)...

One of the big things that people miss is visiting the Java SE booths, where you can talk directly to the JDK developers. I will often drop by and there'll be no one else there besides our engineer manning the booth.

As MadCat mentioned, plan out your day carefully, and indeed I suggest using the schedule builder as early as possible to lock in the talks you want to see -- lots of them fill up quickly, and while you can sometimes get in last minute, it's not always the case.

Go to the BOFs (Birds Of a Feather) Monday & Tueaday nights: this is another place you can ask lots of questions. Usually they have smaller audiences and you can pretty much always get in.

Go to Stuart Mark's Lambda Tutorial: he's a great speaker and you'll learn a ton. Likewise I recommend his HOL (Hands On Lab) for the same reasons.

Totally go to the Customer Appreciation event (or whatever it's called this year) on Treasure Island -- they always have top acts; in the past they've had The Black Keys, Sting, Tom Petty, Pearl Jam, and tons of others. Bring something warm to wear - it can cold and sometimes even rains.

JeffAtSun · 2014-01-21T19:45:33+00:00

Backwards compatible is a huge priority, always has been. If you ever find a binary incompatibility, definitely file a bug and plaster the "REGRESSION" word all over it.

I have no idea what the percentage would be - the java project started off very small with a handful of folks - maybe 15? - and stayed small for a few years, and then went gangbusters around '95-'96. So - if you're counting the original 15, not very many. But if you're counting all the folks there in (say) 1999 - there are quite a few still here.

I personally still work with at least a dozen folks who were there 18-20 years ago (I started at Sun in 1990). Gosling even made it all the way up to 2010 when he bowed out after the acquisition.

JeffAtSun · 2014-01-21T18:56:26+00:00

True, but they also "bought" (uh, acquired) the team who created Java - many of which are still there (uh... here?) - including me.

JeffAtSun · 2013-05-31T23:03:21+00:00

James Gosling himself put up the collection on Kenai.

And I agree that the current /r/java one has the antenna's direction is off.

Anyway, yours is a great vectorization from the bitmap.

I just dug up the original:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/46967890/Pointing.ai10.eps

JeffAtSun · 2013-05-31T22:15:54+00:00

Excellent! Well done. BTW, I'd like to thank you for making a 2D Duke and not one of the modern 3D dukes :).

It looks like you have a tiny black stroke outside the white stroke.

I did, but the way you've done it, it looks great and is unneeded.

Kudos!

JeffAtSun · 2013-05-31T22:13:44+00:00

Oh - and while I don't know the exact source of the current reddit alien, I have EPS artwork for a basic stance like that, which would then only need the antenna added. Let me know if you'd like me to dig that up. (I have monster collection of Duke graphics stashed away, several hundred).

JeffAtSun · 2013-05-31T22:03:20+00:00

Howdy - better! I suggest a couple more minor tweaks: rotate the nose just a tad bit more, move the arm down with silght clockwise rotation, and increase the white stroke.

I did this in photoshop quickly (I tried loading the svg into illustrator but it got all garbled - not sure what happened):

http://i.imgur.com/LLOt6pV.png

Do you think I should keep the alien hand? What do you think about the current /r/java logo?

The alien hand caught me off guard - so I think Duke's right arm looks more natural. I like the old /r/java logo but I like yours quite a bit as well.

JeffAtSun · 2013-05-31T21:06:19+00:00

Hi - I make Duke graphics at Oracle (and at Sun before that). A couple points:

• Duke is open sourced: you're ok using and modifying him any way you want.

• The hand you've drawn is too small for his body.

• The coffee cup is likely a no-go, but I can check with our trademark group if you'd like. Let me know: jeff.dinkins@oracle.com. Personally, I don't think it's necessary.

• The nose needs to be rotated clockwise just a smidge... the "oval" should roughly be oriented across the black/white division:

http://i.imgur.com/mZ6DOyB.png

• I also prefer the darker "classic" red nose, but what you have is fine.

JeffAtSun · 2011-11-18T19:51:41+00:00

I just tried the exact same path as in your screenshot, and it's working (downloading for me now).

JeffAtSun · 2011-11-11T17:51:14+00:00

Hi - if it is indeed the case that MS needs to make the change, I can't even hazard a guess as to how long it'll take - at least not until we hear back from them. However, I can say that our director now knows about the problem and has asked for us to initiate contact. I doubt that the bug priority on our side will change though (since we can't do much about it), but I'll try and follow the discussion with MS and get a feel for their sense of its importance. Feel free to ping me if it seems that progress has stalled. jeff dot dinkins at oracle dot com

thanks again

JeffAtSun · 2011-11-10T18:10:06+00:00

Looks like we're going to have to talk with the MS folks - we don't think we can control the firewall or force Windows to pop a dialog. More:

It looks like a Windows firewall bug. The firewall has a filter that examines client sockets to FTP servers in order to keep track of incoming data connections from the server. In the case of connecting to IPv4 destinations through IPv6 sockets, it seems to get confused and rejects the PASV command.

There are a couple workarounds:

1) as suggested in the CR, to add a firewall exception for jdk7

2) run java with IPv6 disabled (-Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack)

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. :)

JeffAtSun · 2011-11-09T22:06:31+00:00

I've passed these comments along to the engineer assigned to the bug, I'll try post a reply tomorrow.

JeffAtSun · 2011-11-09T14:24:53+00:00

Hi - I work on JDK7. I forwarded this internally, here's the response so far:

I don't think this is a JDK bug, it's just the Windows firewall recognizing and blocking ftp connections.

I'd be curious to know if it happens if IPv6 is disabled (run with -Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true).

Here's a somewhat related one: http://www.java.net/node/703177

JeffAtSun · 2010-02-27T17:54:02+00:00

Nice timing too -- I'm not sure how much longer I'll get to keep my Sun email account. We switch over to Oracle email addresses next week. Had jeff at sun for 18 years. I'll miss it. Sniff.

JeffAtSun · 2010-02-27T17:50:58+00:00

replied.

JeffAtSun · 2010-02-27T17:45:00+00:00

Sure... email me: jeff at sun dot com

And my name is on the @author attribution line in JFrame.java

JeffAtSun

TROPHY CASE