Open Source Application feedback

RealistSpy

Hi all,

So to further my knowledge about programming and to improve my employment success rate. I have worked on few personal project and I just recently made some open source.

So I was wondering if I can get feedback on some of the applications (harsh or not). I really want to get better at programming.

I have other project but I am not sure if I should make them open source just yet.

Experience: Just finished 3rd year software development
URL: Code.Google

srsly78

You have written this stuff to prove you can do it right? Not to actually use any of this in real development I hope... Reinventing the wheel is bad, especially when this stuff is part of standard libraries.

RealistSpy

Yes just to prove I can do something apart from college work.

Colonel Panic

File Header Identifier

Implement IDisposable on Reader class, or have a think about if you really need that class at all.

All business logic inside the form. Should pass in some sort of worker class to form which doesn't know anything about a UI.

Header info all hard coded in HeaderList1.cs - Put this stuff in a file. Add the file as a resource, load file at launch. Big static function full of if statements = unmaintainable in real world applications.

RealistSpy

Colonel Panic wrote: »

Put this stuff in a file. Add the file as a resource, load file at launch. Big static function full of if statements = unmaintainable in real world applications.

@Colonel Panic
Do you mind giving me a little hand with this part?
Would it not be easily maintained in the header1.cs? Any other programmers can also add their own header class?

srsly78 wrote: »

You have written this stuff to prove you can do it right? Not to actually use any of this in real development I hope... Reinventing the wheel is bad, especially when this stuff is part of standard libraries.

@srsly78
Some of the functions in the java class basically simplified some of the original classes in the java library, does that still class as reinventing or would it not be simplified library?

@Anyone
Would someone currently working in the Software Engineering section be able to look at my resume? I want to fine tune everything ready for my final year.

Also I am thinking of learning a scripting language for the summer:
Python or JavaScript?

Thanks in advance, all for a good cause
return 0;

conor.hogan.2

RealistSpy wrote: »

Also I am thinking of learning a scripting language for the summer:
Python or JavaScript?

Both?

Javascript is everywhere so JS if you can only do one.

Aswerty

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

Both?

Javascript is everywhere so JS if you can only do one.

Does JavaScript not only have a large presence in web apps on the client side? I know that's a big area but far from every developer is involved with it. Server side JavaScript is relatively new and isn't particularly pervasive as of yet. Python (no experience with it) is very versatile though. Desktop and server side development is done with it.

If your just looking to get experience with a scripting language I'd say go with whatever feels more interesting but if your thinking of a specific career pick the one that best suits your aspirations.

conor.hogan.2

Yes JS is mainly client side but there is some serious attempts to get it into server side too but I would only recommend learning it for client side stuff anyway.

Far from every developer is involved in Python either. Both are scripting languages, one is used substantially more that is my only point on if you had to pick one pick JS.

Aswerty

I didn't mean to imply everyone uses Python but I did want to stress that Python is a high level versatile programming language whereas JS is mainly used to add richness to web pages. They're both scripting languages but ones a hammer and the other is a screw driver if that makes any sense. What you're planning on doing with them is what matters since just learning the syntax isn't going to do you much good.

Colonel Panic

Write a web-based game using Django for the backend with a pretty WebGL front end. Boom, you've used Javascript and Python and learned some graphics tech too.

No point in splitting hairs here guys!

Node.js and other server side Javascript frameworks are very much in fashion now, hell, you can even use Node.js with Windows Azure but their use seems very niche and if you don't know Javascript already I think you're sort of pissing in the wind.

srsly78

RealistSpy wrote: »

@srsly78
Some of the functions in the java class basically simplified some of the original classes in the java library, does that still class as reinventing or would it not be simplified library?

Does count as reinventing. Thousands of man years of time have been spent writing and refining standard libraries and the algorithms within, it is highly unlikely that you can do a better job. If you can do a better job then you should submit your code to the maintainer and get your stuff incorporated.

edit: What you can do to simplify it is write a little wrapper around the standard library to do what you want, that's fine.

Colonel Panic

RealistSpy wrote: »

@Colonel Panic
Do you mind giving me a little hand with this part?
Would it not be easily maintained in the header1.cs? Any other programmers can also add their own header class?

The problem with it is you've got a few file types in there now, but that could grow to 100s and each one would need a conditional statement when you could put all of that info into a data structure and just add to that, and if you wanted, put that data structure in a file and add to that without needing to recompile the program. Not needed for a small app, sure, but I see a lot of small apps that aren't written to scale but scaled they are all the same resulting on maintenance nightmares and useless performance.

Have a look at what you're doing, reading the first few bytes of a file and checking for certain patterns, but you're using strings to to the tests.

If you had a data structure that had:

The number of bytes to read
A bit mask to get rid of bytes you don't care about
The expected bytes for the file format you want
The file extension for some (basic) sanity checking
The description of the file.

You could just loop through that data for each file you want to check.

conor.hogan.2

Aswerty wrote: »

What you're planning on doing with them is what matters since just learning the syntax isn't going to do you much good.

Yes, but the OP had no specifics in mind so this is all just nice high level talk.

Plus as I said, if you can learn both and use both obviously.

RealistSpy

I decide to try both languages.
In general would be skill be good for a graduate?

Elvis_Presley

srsly78 wrote: »

You have written this stuff to prove you can do it right? Not to actually use any of this in real development I hope... Reinventing the wheel is bad, especially when this stuff is part of standard libraries.

srsly srsly78 stop going so hard on the guy! Very useful to understand how standard stuff works and to give it a go yourself - he would have learnt a lot doing that, it doesn't matter of anyone is going to use it. He's taking an active interest in development outside of his course work which puts him far ahead of most of his classmates in terms of knowledge and maturity. Fair f*cks OP!

RealistSpy

@Colonel Panic
I have updated the codes for the file header but can you help with the coding for the HeaderList1.cs so it would be easier to maintain? I got your explanation but I don't know how to go on about it :S

Thanks to everyone for looking at my work so far very appreciated.