I am a seasoned C++/MFC/Windows programmer. In the last couple of weeks our company has made some major changes and a lot of us are being thrown onto Eclipse/Java projects. I have never played with Eclipse and have not done any serious programming with Java.
Your tutorials are Excellent!! They have introduced me to a whole host of very cool features of Eclipse in a short amount of time and have given me a good headstart. I found the pace just about right because I followed along with each lesson with my Eclipse window open. Performing the actions rather than just watching helps burn it into your brain a little better.
Thanks again. You are a very good instructor.
Jeff Skory
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Hi Jeff. I'm very gratified that you have found the tutorials to be helpful. I was in a similar situation to you, it sounds like. I have been developing software for many years, but, in my case, using older, non-OOP languages. So it's been a lot of fun to dive into the Java and Eclipse world with all of these young whippersnappers.
Knowing that people are getting value from my work helps motivate me to keep hacking away. I'm currently working on a tutorial for GUI using SWT and JFace, which is a lot of fun. Thanks again for your kind words. Mark
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Hi Bernard. I'm not sure whether a TDD tutorial on GUI is possible. I'm looking at free, open-source automated GUI testing options for SWT. But it appears to be fairly complicated, so it might need to be in a separate tutorial of its own. I haven't seen any examples where people use a test-first approach for GUI development. If you know of any, please let me know. Thanks. Mark
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Do you mean TPTP/AGR ? I agree that some of its present limitations and workarounds look disturbing at first sight. Some of its limitations (key map) are solved in Abbot (A better bot) : http://abbot.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Abbot (see abbot.swt.* Eclipse plugin)
Which is complicated too, is there's much more testing softwares/ressources on the net for Swing/AWT than for SWT/JFace
On one hand, learning an API like SWT-JFace is clearly satisfying in itself (and complicated enough), on the other hand I can still feel the pain and the waste of time when debugging GUIs (at least user input controls). This was my concern. Now, I realize it would be a little overdoing, concerning this tutorial.
Bernard Ségalat
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Hi Bernard. Thanks for all of this information! I will be sure to look at all of these and try to better understand the state of GUI testing in Java. I have become a huge fan of test-first development and think that this should eventually become the normal way to do GUI development as well, as long as the tools are available and simple enough to use. Thanks again for the information. Mark
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Mark,
I am a seasoned C++/MFC/Windows programmer. In the last couple of weeks our company has made some major changes and a lot of us are being thrown onto Eclipse/Java projects. I have never played with Eclipse and have not done any serious programming with Java.
Your tutorials are Excellent!! They have introduced me to a whole host of very cool features of Eclipse in a short amount of time and have given me a good headstart. I found the pace just about right because I followed along with each lesson with my Eclipse window open. Performing the actions rather than just watching helps burn it into your brain a little better.
Thanks again. You are a very good instructor.
Jeff Skory
Hi Jeff. I'm very gratified that you have found the tutorials to be helpful. I was in a similar situation to you, it sounds like. I have been developing software for many years, but, in my case, using older, non-OOP languages. So it's been a lot of fun to dive into the Java and Eclipse world with all of these young whippersnappers.
Knowing that people are getting value from my work helps motivate me to keep hacking away. I'm currently working on a tutorial for GUI using SWT and JFace, which is a lot of fun. Thanks again for your kind words. Mark
Mark,
I am very happy you are planning a GUI building with SWT-JFace tutorial (it would have been n°1 on my wish-list).
One question : are you planning to keep on TDD method for this tutorial ? Or automated GUI testing ?
Thanks again for these wonderful tutorials
Bernard Ségalat
Hi Bernard. I'm not sure whether a TDD tutorial on GUI is possible. I'm looking at free, open-source automated GUI testing options for SWT. But it appears to be fairly complicated, so it might need to be in a separate tutorial of its own. I haven't seen any examples where people use a test-first approach for GUI development. If you know of any, please let me know. Thanks. Mark
Hi Mark,
Do you mean TPTP/AGR ? I agree that some of its present limitations and workarounds look disturbing at first sight. Some of its limitations (key map) are solved in Abbot (A better bot) :
http://abbot.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Abbot (see abbot.swt.* Eclipse plugin)
Which is complicated too, is there's much more testing softwares/ressources on the net for Swing/AWT than for SWT/JFace
Here you can find a small tutorial example of how JUnit can be put to work on Swing GUI TDD (can be translated to SWT-JFace) :
http://www.xp123.com/xplor/xp0001/index.shtml
another one on Abbot and AWT to get a taste of this tool :
http://www.cafeaulait.org/slides/sdbestpractices2005/guitesting/index.html
Ressources directories :
tools:
http://wiki.java.net/bin/view/Javapedia/TestingGUIApplications
http://www.opensourcetesting.org/unit_java.php
general:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/java-gui-testing/
and Java Ranch testing thread
On one hand, learning an API like SWT-JFace is clearly satisfying in itself (and complicated enough), on the other hand I can still feel the pain and the waste of time when debugging GUIs (at least user input controls). This was my concern. Now, I realize it would be a little overdoing, concerning this tutorial.
Bernard Ségalat
Hi Bernard. Thanks for all of this information! I will be sure to look at all of these and try to better understand the state of GUI testing in Java. I have become a huge fan of test-first development and think that this should eventually become the normal way to do GUI development as well, as long as the tools are available and simple enough to use. Thanks again for the information. Mark