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Monday, March 04, 2013

Listening to the language

For a while now I've been focusing this blog on my open source project as I think more about it and try to understand what it is, where it is, and where it should go.

One thing that I realized recently while doing these considerations is that it makes sense to just ask a computer language things and Java lets you do that with the Reflections API and Class Viewer is using that to give you information.

So you're asking the Java language and shouldn't all the various computer languages let you do the same?

So, as a developer when I use Class Viewer I'm getting questions answered from the current Java version I'm using, coming direct from the language itself as it talks to me.

And I can ask questions like, if I go to the String class I can ask, if I know how to use the program, which methods take char?

That's my simple example that I like to use as the String class is so familiar. But you can ask so many more questions and just fiddling with things I've been amazed myself at how flexible it is, especially when you use the search field, which will give you inherited methods.

So why not just listen to the language? If you wish, Java will talk to you. And isn't that just really cool?


James Harris