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Well, there's this thing called Java, you know?
The first applet I've built: a Java applet version of the classic computer board game
Automaton Wars, versions of which have also gone under names such
as Critical Mass, Explosion, and Atoms.
Java: Way of the future,
or,
A complete bag of
pants?
The Java version of Automaton Wars runs about as fast as the
original. This is not in itself a Good Thing, though, as I've
been testing the Java version on a 90MHz Pentium and a 200MHz
StrongARM, and the original ran in BBC BASIC on an 8MHz ARM2.
 At
least on MSIE3, the Graphics.drawImage() method gets it wrong
with transparent GIFs unless the palette entry for the
transparent colour is black (0,0,0). No other GIF renderer I've
come across requires this, so InterGif made no effort to
ensure it. In MSIE4 it gets it even wronger, and I can't figure
out why. Automaton Wars comes out partly the wrong colour, but
it's fine in MSIE3, Navigator, Communicator, Riscafé, and
the Linux JDK appletviewer.
The
debugger in Microsoft Visual J++ 1.0 has real grief if you've got
formal arguments whose names shadow member variables.
Fortunately, those of us who program on RiscOS are well used to
debuggers that crash all the time.
URL.getContent() doesn't work nearly as often as it should
when the content is a String. Fortunately you can use getStream()
instead.
Netscape 3 and 4 don't like reloading class files when you
reload a page. If you change the class file on the server, you
have to explicitly clear both caches in the Network Options
dialogue box.
VJ1.0/MSIE3 is bobbins at trapping exceptions... for
actually figuring out where errors occur I end up using
appletviewer under Linux. This is far from ideal as appletviewer
often runs applets which MSIE3 won't!
Graphics.fillArc() takes its arguments in degrees, which
is dubious, but as integers, which is just
wrong.
 All Rites Reversed -- Copy
What You Like
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