Wow. That has caused a little more than a ripple.
Yesterday, I wrote the article titled “Microsoft patents BlueJ” about Microsoft’s patent application. I thought a bit of public visibility can’t hurt our case.
It certainly has generated some visibility. The story made the front pages of digg, slashdot, reddit and del.icio.us. The article has had more than 20,000 hits in the last 24 hours.
Many people have asked me to keep them updated, so I’ll do this with a short summary.
Okay, okay. You know what it’s like with writing headlines: Short and catchy. Accuracy counts as a distant third.
This is my attempt at catchy headline writing. But the truth isn’t far off. It really should have said: Microsoft applies for patent for core BlueJ functionality.
And that’s really true. After blatantly copying BlueJ (without reference or attribution), Microsoft have now filed for patent for the functionality they knowingly copied from us.
Why? To sue us out of the market? To make us pay? Who knows. Sad fact is that this could destroy BlueJ.
As the next Greenfoot release nears, and I mentioned sound support in my last post, there’s now a short demo video available. It shows smooth animation, and sound support in Greenfoot (in an “Asteroids” scenario).
Watch it here.
And come the next Greenfoot release, do it yourself!
And the best thing about it (or at least one of the best): this whole program is written with only about 280 lines of code (in Java)! Not too bad, I reckon.
Greenfoot, the microworld framework we’re working on at Kent, is getting closer and closer to providing a full game programming platform.
Initially, it was designed for simulations. Then it got key control. Now it gets sound.
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A change occurred recently in the discussion of introductory programming teaching: the procedural backlash.
Suddenly, respected and experienced teachers start claiming that teaching object orientation early is not only difficult, but impossible. Procedural programming once again is supposed to be the solution, with objects having to take a back seat.
This development is not only questionable and unfortunate, but wrong and dangerous.
Read the full article here.
Wording is important in good human-computer interaction design. Wording of commands, messages, status and other interface elements can make a big difference. So let’s think for a minute about the word “safe”.
Safe is good, right? Is there anything bad about “safe”?
Firefox has a “Safe Mode”. And it’s a really bad idea. Why, you ask? “Safe” sounds really reassuring. An army of marketing experts could hardly come up with a better word, you would think.
So what’s not to like?
A while ago, I wrote about the new NetBeans IDE / BlueJ Edition. Well, no piece of software can stand on alone on its own – it also needs support from documentation, background information, tutorials, and ideally a user community to really take off.
Sun have now released two more pieces in this puzzle: A very nice article and a webcast on the Sun Developer Network.
In a comment to an earlier entry on this page – “What’s happening with BlueJ?” – Peter Loborg mentioned a couple of features he misses in BlueJ: the ability to display the full UML details of a class in the diagram, and better support for packages.
This touches on a general point: what features should BlueJ support?
Most people agree that one of BlueJ’s main strengths is its small size (as seen by the user) and simple interface. At the same time, most people want us to include their favourite feature…
A few thoughts about feature inclusion in general and the UML feature in particular.
The NetBeans IDE / BlueJ Edition, which I wrote about in an earlier post, has now been officially released. You can download it from the NetBeans web site.
This environment gives you a great option for your second IDE, once BlueJ becomes too small for you and you’re ready for the serious stuff.
Once you’re in NetBeans, try out Matisse, the new NetBeans GUI builder. It’s nice. Believe me, worth a look.
Java has undoubtedly been the most popular language of the last decade.
It has taken over large parts of the educational and professional sector. It is its use as a language for programming teaching that I want to talk about today.
Java has been dominating introductory programming teaching at universities for years now. But is it time to throw it out?