Howdy all, I'm a newbie .... why else would I be here.
However, just to give you some background: I've been programming in one form another for the past 30ish years .. scary .. the last 14 or so using Powerbuilder (PB) (javascript:%20x()... don't larf) and Oracle, developing client/server applications as a contractor. Now PB, bless it's cotton socks, is virtually dead in the UK and I need to find some other way to earn a crust. So I elected to xcross train into
java - some would say a bit late in the day!
Now my question: I figured the best way to learn this stuff would be to grasp the basics (I'm nearly there) and then dive in and migrate a small bespoke PB app that I wrote for a local IFA. What's confusing me is that when I look at all the books and online tutorials for the GUI aspect of things I very much get the impression that the intention (at least originally) is to that it should be done textually.
Is that right?
Do java guys, in reality, really design GUIs textually as opposed to using an
IDE?
[I should say I'm totally aware of the benefits of understanding the underlying code both from a learning angle and a development viewpoint. With PB there are times when it's far easier to go in and tweak things textually than fight the IDE]
One of the reasons I ask this is that, obviously, I'm trying to align my skills to maximize my chances of gaining new contracts whilst leveraging my experience. So, having determined that the main flavours of IDE seem to be Netbeans (which I'm using for some of my training) and Eclipse, I did some research (in the UK market) on JobServe. I found that Netbeans is very rarely a required skill and often AWT/SWING/GUI skills are mentioned with no reference to an IDE at all. This, coupled with the preponderance of tutorials and books to focus on the textual aspects of GUI development, led me to wonder if fully fledged java guys just used a textual approach. Hence the question.
Sorry if this seems a lame question but java's a big world and I'm having problems deciding where to concentrate my efforts.
I'm sure there will be more lame questions I'm afraid!
Regards and thanks for any insight you might give me,
Phil.