Memory leaks in Java are fortunately pretty rare, and when they do exist, off-the-shelf tools like JProfiler and OptimizeIt normally make short work of them. So when I discovered that an application I'm working on had a memory leak -- a BIG one -- I wasn't too worried. At first. Should just be a simple matter of spending some quality time with a profiler, shouldn't it?
This particular leak,...
Java suffers from a layout crisis. It ships with a bunch of poorly-thought-out layout managers, a few (like GridLayout and BorderLayout) that are decent within their limited niche, and... GridBagLayout. Despite a few warts, GridBagLayout is powerful enough to handle almost any layout task -- but it's so ridiculously difficult to use that most programmers avoid it like the plague.
There have...
While working on my XML user interface language, JAXX, I wanted to provide a mechanism for users to add support for additional tags and data types. As JAXX is a command-line compiler, a run-time API to add additional features would be very awkward to access, so a Service Provider Interface (SPI) seemed like a natural fit.
In case you aren't familiar with SPIs, they have a tantalizing proposition...
The problem
In my day job at Yahoo!, I face a frustrating problem: Java is the most powerful browser-based technology available, easily besting competitors like Ajax and Flex, and yet I can't use it. These are the main reasons:
It's too big - Sun is (rightfully) proud of the fact that 90% of computers already have Java installed, but that still means that 10% of my users are stuck having to...
