java

All posts tagged java

Pass Streams Instead of Lists

Posted by Jacob Zimmerman on 2015-02-21
Posted in: Functional Programming, Java. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Opening disclaimer: this isn’t always a good idea. I’ll present the idea, along with some of the reasons why it’s a good idea, but then I’ll talk about some instances where it’s not so great.

Being Lazy

As you may know, I’ve been dabbling in Python nearly as much as I’ve been working with Java. One thing that I’ve liked about Python as soon I found out about it is generators. They allow for lazy operations on collections, so you can pass iterators/generators around until you finally actually need the final result of the operations – without affecting the original collection (under most circumstances; but you’re not likely to affect it accidentally). Continue Reading

Refactoring to Allow Test Doubles

Posted by Jacob Zimmerman on 2015-02-14
Posted in: Java, Testing. Tagged: , , , , , , . 1 Comment

Sometimes, when you make a class, it directly instantiates an object to use in its methods. For example:

public void myFunc()
{
   MyType object = new MyType();
   object.doSomething();
   this.thingy = object.getSomething();
}

This is generally viewed as bad, since you’re tightly coupling your class to the instantiated one. “But,” you say, “I know that I will never use any other class, and I certainly don’t want users of the class to be supplying alternatives to use.” These concerns are mostly valid, but they leave out a very important thing to pay attention to: testing. Continue Reading

Functional Factory Pattern

Posted by Jacob Zimmerman on 2015-01-31
Posted in: Design Patterns, Functional Programming, Java, Python. Tagged: , , , , . 6 Comments

Do you want a REALLY quick way to make a Factory object? Then lambdas or other function-passing is what you need! Not only is it quick, it’s really simple. I bet, if you’re a pretty good with Lambdas, you have a pretty good idea on how to do this simply by having read the title. If you’re one of those, stick around; you never know what you could learn.

As a side note: I’m doing code examples in Java AND Python. Why? Because I love both languages and it sure doesn’t hurt to put stuff out there for both. Continue Reading

How I’d Like Java To Be

Posted by Jacob Zimmerman on 2015-01-24
Posted in: Java. Tagged: . 1 Comment

I like Java. I enjoy programming in Java. But after using Python for a while, there are several things I would love to change about it. It’s almost purely syntactical, so there may be a JVM language that is better, but I’m not really interested since I still need to use normal Java for work. I realize that these changes won’t be implemented (although I thought I heard that one of them is actually in the pipeline for a future version); these are just some thoughts.

I don’t want to free Java up the way that Python is open and free. I actually often relish in the challenges that the restrictions in Java present. I mostly just want to type less. So, here are the changes I’d love to see in Java. Continue Reading