Qt Jambi

While I was browsing random websites, I stumbled upon Qt Jambi: TrollTech's Framework for Java desktop development. After I ran the demos, I got really impressed. The demos look/run just like native Qt applications, and use many cool Qt functions. Another great step for better Java desktop development.

And also, with the release of Java 6, we have seen great improvements on the GTK Look&Feel. Applications with GTK L&F also look just like native applications.

Since it's also free, I am expecting Java to be the first choice for Linux desktop applications.

Working with GWT

I've been asked to code a multi-user web based project in the second week of my internship (in IBM Turkey, by the way), and left the programming language choice to me. First I thought PHP would be easy, but I decided learning GWT and coding the application in Java would be better for me. I started by reading the excellent tutorials in IBM Developerworks ( 1,2,3,4 ).

I had some bookmarks about GWT, and checked them out. One was Googlipse plug-in for Eclipse, which was renamed to Cypal Studio. After many hours of trying to get it to work, I found out that the problem was Turkish locale. Changing the system language to English helped.

Later, I decided to try Instantiation's GWT Designer. It looked great until I added a RichTextArea to my design. It crashed, but when I removed the RichTextArea, everything was back to normal.

I guess I won't be needing any GUI tools for GWT development. Eclipse with Cypal Studio will be enough.

Java & Excel Documents

During my internship, I was asked to code an application that parses a given text and adds the data to an Excel document. Parsing was easy, but Excel part seemed difficult. But after a quick google search, I found JExcelApi. It is simple, and nicely documented. Thanks to JExcelApi coders, I finished the application in just a few hours.
These kind of situations makes any coder appreciate "free software".