New content! Fun!

I've found that, although I know most of this code, I don't know/never payed attention to all of the vocabulary. There are also some smaller things, like scope, that I never learned. A string is, obviously, a string of variables, but I am wondering how it is stored. It has an adjustable size, so it can't be an array, it would be silly to use a stack, meaning there must be a way to have a "variable" that stores multiple values with an adjustable limit to the amount of values.

I'm still waiting for the day when we learn about static vs. non-static. I keep finding things that seem insanely useful and then being incapable of using them because they are non-static. InputStream is a prime example, I was interested and wanted to mess with it, only to find that I couldn't use read() with out.print(). I understand the curriculum, though I feel like we should learn more general code (if, for, while, etc.) before learning about methods that aren't immediately useful.

This is kinda unhelpful

We didn't do a lot last week, we only had 2 class periods and didn't do a lot during them. Some math and methods and that was about it. I didn't know about mod, nor did I ever even see a need for it, though I could definitely see using it in the future. Same with printf, I never noticed/never cared about loss of precision in the past, though I definitely see this becoming useful.

This is a bit short, but I don't really have a lot to talk about.

I ramble alot, maybe I should start a blog.

We're going over class files, methods, method types, etc. These are things I have already learned, though I still have yet to understand the difference between static and non-static and their uses. A number of times I have run into problems involving contradictions between the two, for which there is apparently no simple solution. I have tried reading online documentation but have failed to find any that explains the subject in a way that makes sense to me.

The more I learn about java the more anxious I get about actionscript. I had Flash on an old mac of mine but when I recently got a new computer (Windows) I lost the ability to run flash. Actionscript, when compared to java, almost seems like multiple programming languages. There's a huge amount of pre-made functions, from graphics to effects to even basic 3D engines. Hit tests are done for you, though the syntax is a bit lower level than java, but only a bit.

I do feel like, since there are no built in graphics libraries, that we should learn how to make graphics from the core since there already so much pre-written code in the labs. This being said, I don't know what the syntax is like and I can understand if it's hard to teach with as basic programming knowledge as we have so far.

I think I'm content.

When I signed up for this class I was basing my expectations off of whatever counselor happened to be at the elective signup. These expectations consisted of "It's harder than computer programming", "It requires prior programming experience" and "Your performance doesn't matter if you don't take the AP exam". These expectations have been met for the most part; the second doesn't seem to be true, but I'll talk about that later. For now, I have to say I'm pretty happy.

So far I have found that, as I expected, the JAVA class I took last summer was incomplete. It taught the basics and nothing but the basics; it stopped after we learned about inheritance. I remember, when I was taking the class, asking the teacher to explain variables that were not boolean, char, string, or int. I thought there was something more to doubles then "They hold decimals" and I needed to use the math class. He kept explaining other ways of doing it: using a random class, writing my own methods, etc. Eventually I gave up and just taught myself some things, though I still never got the big picture. We never learned about /t, /n, etc. either.

Despite my satisfaction of the curriculum, I do feel that certain things are not hard to understand, but rather are explained badly. For example, the different variable types and their properties are pretty straightforward, but the explanation of why to use anything besides int or double was never really given.

One last thing: although it's clear that the class is meant for those with no programming experience, it doesn't bug me because I'm learning things anyways.

-Jonas