Java in schools?

[general_koffi]

I matriculated last year. We did Java with Ready to Program, Netbeans and JGrasp.

Dunno why there were so many. I mainly used Ready because it's basically Notepad with a "compile" button. (IoW, simple.)

 

[greggpb]

They'll never teach you memory management in a school module, when I was in school we did Pascal and at no point did they tell us anything about pointers and heap allocation/deallocation.

we did memory managment back in 97

 

[sn3rd]

Yeah, pretty much exactly what I mean. In the IDE you have to connect to a database before you view or manipulate the contents. Now if you wanted to create say a simple accounting program with GUI interface, how would you connect to the database from outside Netbeans like any normal program?

The mysql server (if so configured) allows a connection through telnet. If you mean you want to use Java to access the database, then you need the jdbc and something like mysql connector. Don't know if I'm understanding your question correctly though

 

[Gnome]

we did memory managment back in 97

Perhaps your school did but it's never been part of the curriculum (for public schools).

I think rather teach a student how the heap/stack works in Java and once their good with that let them handle the deallocation themselves VS. GC.

Not really much of a difference anyway, the only thing that's different in Java is that you don't have to deallocate memory and the syntax has been obfuscated (in a matter of speaking).

my 2c.

 

[AirWolf]

The mysql server (if so configured) allows a connection through telnet. If you mean you want to use Java to access the database, then you need the jdbc and something like mysql connector. Don't know if I'm understanding your question correctly though

Maybe I'm using the wrong terminology.

I was thinking more of something like a matric programming project (in Turbo Pascal) --> the program has the create, read, edit, delete, sort funtionality and compiled to .exe you can run it independently of Turbo Pascal.

So what would be the Java equivalent of this? I have seen a little about the GUI app builder with CRUD functionality, but in the IDE you have to connect to a database to run your app.

 

[TheRiddl3r]

Matriculating this year, we used Ready to Program from Gr 8 - Gr 10, then switched to jGrasp and have been using that ever since.

How do you connect to a DB from outside the IDE?

Here's the code that we were taught to connect - NOTE: doesn't work with 2007

import java.sql.*;

private Connection conn = null;

public static void makeConnection()
{
try
{
Class.forName("sun.jdbc.odbc.JdbcOdbcDriver");
conn = DriverManager.getConnection(
"jdbcdbcRIVER={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)};DBQ=DBNAME.mdb ");
//file's name is "DBNAME.mdb" and is in the same directory as the
//.java & .class file -- this will change to point to the right file
//an absolute or relative path is possible, but the method shown is
//probably best for exam conditions where files 'move'

System.out.println("Connection successful");
}
catch(Exception e)
{
System.out.println("Failed to get connection");
e.printStackTrace();
}
}

Then to do stuff we used SQL like the following:

try
{
Statement stmt = conn.createStatement();
//SQL to query the database
ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery("SELECT * FROM tblCD");
while(rs.next())
{
String Artist = rs.getString("Artist");
String Title = rs.getString("Title");

//etc. etc. etc. for the remaining fields
//print to screen -->> not very pretty, we just want to see it work!

System.out.println("Artist: " + Artist + "\nTitle: "+Title);


}
rs.close();
}
catch(SQLException e)
{
e.printStackTrace();
}


Probably not nicely spaced on the forum, but there it is.

 

[sn3rd]

Maybe I'm using the wrong terminology.

I was thinking more of something like a matric programming project (in Turbo Pascal) --> the program has the create, read, edit, delete, sort funtionality and compiled to .exe you can run it independently of Turbo Pascal.

So what would be the Java equivalent of this? I have seen a little about the GUI app builder with CRUD functionality, but in the IDE you have to connect to a database to run your app.

The Java equivalent of compiling your program to .exe so you can easily distribute it is to use something like gcj to compile your files. This outputs an executable. But this kind of defeats one of the main purposes of Java: Platform independence achieved by compiling to bytecode for interpretation by the runtime environment. Compiling to .exe would effectively eliminate that capability. But it is useful for deployment of you Java apps.

Did I answer your question THIS time?

 

[Gnome]

There is no OFFICIAL tool that compiles Java to binary and all of them have problems so be careful when using them.

Sun Microsystems doesn't work on such compilers since it's against the "Write once run everywhere" motto.

 

[sn3rd]

There is no OFFICIAL tool that compiles Java to binary and all of them have problems so be careful when using them.

Sun Microsystems doesn't work on such compilers since it's against the "Write once run everywhere" motto.

You again!!!

 

[Gnome]

You again!!!

LOL, what is there something I wrote that is false?

I just thought the guy should be warned

 

[sn3rd]

LOL, what is there something I wrote that is false?

I just thought the guy should be warned

Nah. You're absolutely right (for once )

 

[AirWolf]

The Java equivalent of compiling your program to .exe so you can easily distribute it is to use something like gcj to compile your files. This outputs an executable. But this kind of defeats one of the main purposes of Java: Platform independence achieved by compiling to bytecode for interpretation by the runtime environment. Compiling to .exe would effectively eliminate that capability. But it is useful for deployment of you Java apps.

Did I answer your question THIS time?

Yep, thanks.

I'm new to java so pardon my ignorance.

 

[sn3rd]

Not at all...

Oh, and be sure to note Gnome's comment about gcj