Reference variables

Although not immediately useful, the last week definitely contained some very important information. The use of references vs pointer is fairly intuitive in java, though I can see this being a roadblock if I were to, say, teach myself C++. I don't have a lot of commentary on the subject, and I haven't been working on many programs recently, so this blog entry is going to be fairly short.

I have, however, been working more with arduino. I am using an electret microphone to detect sound, though the resistance it provides is not significant enough for the arduino to pick up, so I ordered an LM386 amplifier to amplify the difference.

ArrayLists, JFrame, and Eclipse

Something I realized while at UIL was how insanely useful eclipse. Eclipse shows the user things that they might not be introduced to otherwise by suggesting fixes for errors. Eclipse makes it easier for a user to write without memorizing methods and also allows the user to learn new classes much easier. It seems unnecessary to memorize so much in programming and have to think about so many things when a computer could very easily do that for you.

Arraylists I had already taught myself and they're very straightforward if you understand how normal arrays work.

I've been trying to teach myself how to use PFrame and JPanel, though there is something I clearly don't understand in the classes, probably involving inheritance and the super() method. I've been procrastinating on teaching myself how to use inheritance so I'm probably going to do that soon.

I also finally realized what the difference between static and nonstatic is, and I have to say that the online sources for it make it much more complex than it is.