Just looking at , there are no lack of excellent open-source projects to choose from.  The site contains a large repository of open-source projects ever conceived.  There are many interesting projects comprising application and library that one can download and use it subjected to the open-source license like GPL, LGPL. In this post, the focus is on learning how to use a class library particularly those that are poorly supported by its documentation. A class library is basically contains a series of files that comprises of reusable classes and components that exposed through its API (Application Programming Interface eg function, variable, class) that can be used to create a application.

Some of my favourite open-source libraries are JFreeChart , iText , , . These are very prominent open-source projects that are well-documented with excellent support by its authors and book publishers as well. JFreeChart is supported with a very comprehensive well-written commercial ebook that no serious JFreeChart developers should be without, iText and HttpClient  are complemented with books from Manning , Oreilly  

However these are by no means the only libraries that are useful as these popular libraries are very specialized in its usage and application. There are alternatives to these libraries that varies in term of sophistication and size, and also libraries that perform other functions like 3d rendering libraries, printing, OLAP, XML and JSON processing.

Anyone wanna guess what the following class does ?

As much as open-source libraries are well-known for their innovativeness and usefulness, majority of them tend to suffer from lack of documentation and examples which prohibit their widespread use. Usually, the libraries only come with sparse  documentation and examples for good start but developers are helpless once they want to tap the full capabilities of the library. In addition, most libraries simply generate the API in JavaDoc (left) with hardly any explanation of what a class or method does.  This usually due to the fact that library authors generally does not like to write documentation as they prefer to engage in coding and subscribe to the ‘fallacy’ that coding itself is the best form of documentation which quite ironically given that the examples that come with library hardly are that comprehensive. Indeed, most libraries often assume one to have a ‘hacking’ mentality to delve into codebase to understand how the library can be used.

So given these circumstances, how can a developer learn to use a class library ? The following offers some checklists that developer can use as a guide.

• User’s Guide/Documentation - Usually comes together as part of compressed downloaded library file. They are popularly distributed in PDF or html files. They usually offer good introduction on the library, setup and rudimentary usage to get started. They cover the important area but does not offer much depth (There always exception, JGraph offers one of the best documentation). Perhaps one plausible reason that documentation seems lacking is due to involving effort requires to update it especially if the library is still undergoing changes (Library hardly ever get finalized)
• Book - If you can get to learn and understand a library from book, why not ? The book usually goes through rounds of editing and proofreading by professionals from book publishing firms to ensure quality and readability are maintained (Not to say that all books are erroneous)
• Example codes - Generally contains example codes that cover wide range of functions. They are usually short and demonstrated specific function of the library.
• unit-test codes - This is often over-looked but is one of the most effective way to learn and unlock the usage of the library.  Take note that these codes usually do not come with the binary download of library but as source code version of the library as the test-codes can be quite large. These are often found in their own test directory and perform comprehensive testing of crucial classes. One major problem in using a library is how to use the class and its API, and how it can be used appropriately. From these testing codes, one can learn how to use the API and classes. In fact, some libraries do use the test code to demonstrate the usage of API of the library extensively. Check out   and see how its unit-test codes teach one to use its API. The following shows the fragment of the test-codes. Notice how the API is been used.
  
• Open-source Project - Most open-source projects, whether application or library, actually leverage heavily on open-source resources too. It means that someone has learnt to use the library and apply it into his project and therefore checking out the source code might shred some light on how the library and its API are been used. But how does one find out whether respective library is been used ? The answer is to make use of Open Source Code Search Engine likes , a search engine that specializes in searching source code by offering advanced and management tools. For example, just enter the keyword that belong to the library, and the search engine returns a list of projects that use the library.

  

• Wiki, forum, support site, mailing list - These are popular places where one can find answer and support for the library. But whether one find those effective, I leave the answer to you.

I don’t think I need to tell who Sarah McLachlan is ? Do I ?

  Angel 

As a soundtrack

This is also a theme song for the 1998 movie City of Angels.

Angel

Spend all your time waiting
For that second chance
For a break that would make it okay
There’s always one reason
To feel not good enough
And it’s hard at the end of the day
I need some distraction
Oh beautiful release
Memory seeps from my veins
Let me be empty
And weightless and maybe
I’ll find some peace tonight

In the arms of an angel
Fly away from here
From this dark cold hotel room
And the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage
Of your silent reverie
You’re in the arms of the angel
May you find some comfort there

So tired of the straight line
And everywhere you turn
There’s vultures and thieves at your back
And the storm keeps on twisting
You keep on building the lie
That you make up for all that you lack
It don’t make no difference
Escaping one last time
It’s easier to believe in this sweet madness oh
This glorious sadness that brings me to my knees

In the arms of an angel
Fly away from here
From this dark cold hotel room
And the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage
Of your silent reverie
You’re in the arms of the angel
May you find some comfort there
You’re in the arms of the angel
May you find some comfort here

Live Performance

For tsunami aid

]]> http://geekycoder.wordpress.com/2008/07/04/reviewsong-listening-to-the-voice-of-angel/feed/ GreekyCoder image image image image image image image image http://geekycoder.wordpress.com/2008/07/01/reviewsong-reunion-of-x-japan/ http://geekycoder.wordpress.com/2008/07/01/reviewsong-reunion-of-x-japan/#comments Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:34:19 +0000 geekycoder http://geekycoder.wordpress.com/2008/07/01/reviewsong-reunion-of-x-japan/

The Legend

The Reunion Concert

X-JAPAN, one of the most legendary rock bands in Japanese history, has sold over 20 million albums to date. Reuniting more than a decade after their disbandment in 1997, X JAPAN originally planned for two concerts to take place at the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan, March 28th and 30th, but added the 29th date to their Tokyo Dome shows this Tuesday. Due to over 100,000 unprecedented pre-sale ticket applications within an hour of the pre-sale start, the 29th show was added to address the huge demand. At this time, over 200,000 ticket applications have been submitted to three shows with a total capacity of 150,000 attendees. Read more at http://www.einsofmarketing.com/xjapan/    

The fans of X-Japan have been looking forward to this reunion concert since the band disbanded a decade ago. The group was greatly devastated when Toshi wanted to leave the group and Hide, one of the group members, passed away. A lot has changed since then for X-Japan. One of the noticeably difference compare to their heyday concert is that Toshi the singer no longer able to hit certain difficult notes and his once perfect voice seek to crack quite sometimes. However this is because Toshi hasn’t been singing and practicing the songs since the group disbanded, and that songs have been written for Toshi to match his then excellent vocal. Still the fans are not concerned about the quality of his voice anymore,  what matter to them is that their idol has returned to create another memorable concert performance.

I first came to know about X-Japan through the song ‘TEARS’ after watching the movie WindStruck and have written a post on it in

Review<Song>: Where’s my sassy girl ?. For those who unfamiliar with the history of the son, Tears is written by Yoshiki , the leader of the group, after his father took his own life. The unfortunate event inspired him to write the song which explain why the song exalts such emotional and depressing feeling.

One of the nice songs not in concert include Crucify My Love.

The Location

The concert took place at Toyko Dome 

The Interview

The Performance

Tears

This is my favourite song. This also the theme song for My Sassy Girl 2 aka Windstruck

Check out past rendition of this song more than a decade ago

30/3

29/3

Tears

LONELINESS YOUR SILENT WHISPER
FILLS A RIVER OF TEARS
THROUGH THE NIGHT
MEMORY YOU NEVER LET ME CRY
AND YOU, YOU NEVER SAID GOOD-BYE
SOMETIMES OUR TEARS BLINDED THE LOVE
WE LOST OUR DREAMS ALONG THE WAY
BUT I NEVER THOUGHT YOU’D TRADE YOUR SOUL TO THE FATES
NEVER THOUGHT YOU’D LEAVE ME ALONE

TIME THROUGH THE RAIN HAS SET ME FREE
SANDS OF TIME WILL KEEP YOUR MEMORY
LOVE EVERLASTING FADES AWAY
ALIVE WITHIN YOUR BEATLESS HEART
DRY YOUR TEARS WITH LOVE
DRY YOUR TEARS WITH LOVE

Forever Love

30/3

29/3 Unplugged version

Endless Rain

Longing

Art Of Life
This is another legendary song in Japan which originally lasts for 30mins.

Art Of Life

Desert Rose
Why do you live alone
If you are sad
I’ll make you leave this life
Are you white, blue or bloody red
All I can see is drowning in cold grey sand

The winds of time
You knock me to the ground
I’m dying of thirst
I wanna run away
I don’t know how to set me free to live
My mind cries out feeling pain

I’ve been roaming to find myself
How long have I been feeling endless hurt
Falling down, rain flows into my heart
In the pain I’m waiting for you
Can’t go back
No place to go back to
Life is lost, Flowers fall
If it’s all dreams
Now wake me up
If it’s all real
Just kill me

I’m making the wall inside my heart
I don’t wanna let my emotions get out
It scares me to look at the world
Don’t want to find myself lost in your eyes
I tried to drown my past in grey
I never wanna feel more pain
Ran away from you without saying any words
What I don’t wanna lose is love

Through my eyes
Time goes by like tears
My emotion’s losing the color of life
Kill my heart
Release all my pain
I’m shouting out loud
Insanity takes hold over me

Turning away from the wall
Nothing I can see
The scream deep inside
reflecting another person in my heart
He calls me from within
“All existence you see before you
must be wiped out :
Dream, Reality, Memories,
and Yourself”

I begin to lose control of myself
My lust is so blind, destroys my mind
Nobody can stop my turning to madness
No matter how you try to hold me in your heart
Why do you wanna raise these walls
I don’t know the meaning of hatred
My brain gets blown away hearing words of lies
I only want to hold your love

Stab the dolls filled with hate
Wash yourself with their blood
Drive into the raging current of time
Swing your murderous weapon into the belly
“the earth”
Shout and start creating confusion
Shed your blood for pleasure
And what? For love?
What am I supposed to do?

I believe in the madness called “Now”
Past and future prison my heart
Time is blind
But I wanna trace my love
on the wall of time, over pain in my heart
Art of life
Insane blade stabbing dreams
Try to break all truth now
But I can’t heal this broken heart in pain
Cannot start to live, Cannot end my life
Keep on crying

Close my eyes
Time breathes I can hear
All love and sadness
melt in my heart

Dry my tears
Wipe my bloody face
I wanna feel me living my life
outside my walls

You can’t draw a picture of yesterday, so
You’re painting your heart with your blood
You can’t say “No”
Only turning the wheel of time
with a rope around your neck
You build a wall of morality and take a breath
from between the bricks
You make up imaginary enemies and are chased by them
You’re trying to commit suicide
You’re satisfied with your prologue
Now you’re painting your first chapter black
You are putting the scraps of life together
and trying to make an asylum for yourself
You’re hitting a bell at the edge of the stage
and
You are trying to kill me

I believe in the madness called “Now”
Time goes flowing, breaking my heart
Wanna live
Can’t let my heart kill myself
Still I haven’t found what I’m looking for
Art of life
I try to stop myself
But my heart goes to destroy the truth
Tell me why
I want the meaning of my life
Do I try to live, Do I try to love
in my dream

I’m breaking the wall inside my heart
I just wanna let my emotions get out
Nobody can stop
I’m running to freedom
No matter how you try to hold me in your world
Like a doll carried by the flow of time
I sacrificed the present moment for the future
I was in chains of memory half-blinded
Losing my heart, walking in the sea of dreams

Close my eyes
Rose breathes I can hear
All love and sadness melt in my heart
Dry my tears
Wipe my bloody face
I wanna feel me living my life
outside my mind

Dreams can make me mad
I can’t leave my dream
I can’t stop myself
Don’t know what I am
What lies are truth?
What truths are lies?

I believe in the madness called “Now”
Time goes flowing, breaking my heart
Wanna live
Can’t let my heart kill myself
Still I haven’t found what I’m looking for
Art of life
I try to stop myself
But my heart goes to destroy the truth
Tell me why
I want the meaning of my life
Do I try to live? Do I try to love?

Art of life
An Eternal Bleeding heart
You never wanna breathe your last
Wanna live
Can’t let my heart kill myself
Still I’m feeling for
A Rose is breathing love
in my life

Veteran programmers surely encounter such situation where they spend countless hours tracking down a hard-to-fin bug that that is due to local variable having the same name as the instance/static variable in a class. In such case, the local variable will take precedent over instance variable which may not be the intention of the programmer.

Such case is especially prevalent in large class. Despite the best practice that emphasize that class should be kept as small as possible with some gurus setting a threshold of 200 line so that class is easily maintainable, in practice it often impractical for some classes as it creates more classes unnecessarily that results in higher memory consumption, reduced performance and make class navigation time-consuming. If one peruse many open-source projects, one will surely find certain classes having thousands of line of code. With more lines of code also means that the class will be error-prone to carelessness especially if the class is been maintained by many programmers. It is in this situation that name clash is likely the source of difficult bug.

Such name clash are common source of potential bug when local variable utilize the same name as instance variable whether by intention or by assumption. There will be tendency to use back the same name as instance variable for method argument (method argument is also local to method) or as local variable. Another caveat when one reuse local variable name that similar to instance variable name end up confusing himself, and end up periodically checking if the local variable is indeed been declared within the method. When class become large, such meticulous assurance that there is no name clash becomes time-consuming. In a team environment where many programmers fixing each other classes, such check becomes involving and time-wasting.

Quantifying local variable with underscore

So how do one resolve the name clash which may be the source of potential bug and confusion ? This could be done by simply prefix local variable/method argument with underscore eg _myName. In this way, one neither need to worry if there is any potential name clash nor check if a variable is local or instance by its declaration. Just by the name of variable will indicate its scope.

Code <TestVariable.java>

public class TestVariable
{
    private static int seed = 1;
    private static String data = “testing”;

    private static String getResult(int _seed) // local
    {
        // See how easy to tell the scope of variable through its name
        // It is a time-saver if the method and class are large
        int _count = 20; 

        return data + (_seed * _count); // local & instance
    }

    public static void main(String[] _args)
    {
        System.out.println(getResult(103));
    }
}

Wong Li Hong is a popular Taiwanese singer who  creatively combines the western and eastern music to create his own instinctive style of rap and love ballade.

  Forever Love

MTV

Forever Love

爱你,
不是因为你的美和影
我越来越爱你,
每个眼神触动我的心
因为你让我看见forever
才了解自己,
未来这些日子
要好好珍惜

爱我
有些痛苦有些不公平
如果真的爱我
不是理所当然的决定
感到你的呼吸在我耳边
像微风深情
温柔的安抚,
我的不安定
所以我要
每年研究你的笑容
wo~~
多么自然

forever love forever love
我只想用我这一辈子去爱你
从今以后,
你会是所有
幸福的理由

爱情,
是场最美最远的旅行
沿途遇经泥泞
偶尔阻碍我们的前进
感到你的体温在我怀里
像阳光和煦
巧妙的熔化
我的不安定
不可思议
证明我爱你的理由
wo
多么自然
你感动的眼睛,
我沉默的声音,
仿佛就是最好的证明
就让我再说一次
ilove you ~~
直到永远
oh
forever love
forever love
forever love

Live #1

Live #2

Live #3

Making of Forever Love

By 曹格,Gary Chaw
 

Main

This is a intuitive design where the steps are guided by top-down sequence. User can view the video that is selected for the source.

Notice too the emphasis on the START button.

Packaging

Xara3D is a simple but yet powerful word logo design software with extremely real-time preview of effect. The object can directly manipulated by the mouse. The are two rows of button bars. On top is the standard menu which replicate all the functions found in the left toolbar and Outlook bar.

Open dialog with preview

Text Panel

The More button will toggle the visibility of the character map.

Comment dialog

Customize dialog

File Menu

Not all items require accelerator key.

Slider dropdown

This is very fantastic feature. User can change the real time display either entering the only numeric digit. The percent sign is shown once user accept the input or lost focus. Or either click and drag on the slider indicator. The indicator will display the bar while the slider component is moved to vertical position with the value. The slider value need not have to be 1% increment.

Help Menu

Not all buttons require image.

Packaging

GeekyUI is setup to capture some of the interesting and innovative GUI design for inspiration and learning. There is basically no shortcut in learning GUI screen layout and interaction design, and it takes experience and constant refinement to get a simple UI that at least alleviate much of complexity. One of the most effective way to do that is to learn existing product, whether it is desktop application or web application.

Software.

hello