swixml... again

I've been playing with SwiXML again. I like defining Swing components declaratively in XML, but I dislike having to register derived custom classes explicitly in code. Why can't SwiXML just try to load classes with similar names through the classloader. In other words, it would be nice if SwiXML saw a tag like <myClass myProperty="value1"> and tried to resolve it to a class named MyClass with a bean property called myProperty. I wouldn't even mind having to specify the Java package name as an attribute of an XML element, for example...

<myClass package="edu.unomaha.ui" myProperty="value1"/>

There's probably some design issue that made the original programmer decide against doing it that way. If I find time over break, it might be a fun exercise to see how difficult it would be to refactor SwiXML so that it can resolve XML elements into Java classes automatically.

omaha java meetup on 12/20

The Omaha Java Meetup Group is having its monthly event this Monday (12/20) @ 7:00pm. I've never been to one of these before but plan on checking it out.

interview with bvu career services

My alma mater interviewed me as part of their monthly Career Services newsletter. The interviewer did a splendid job of not making me sound like a blathering idiot, IMHO.

tagging along in orlando

Lisa had a conference in Orlando this last weekend, so I reluctantly tagged along (har har). We stayed at the Portofino Bay Hotel and managed to find time for visiting Sea World and Universal Studios Islands of Adventure.

Ian stayed with my parents and sisters. He must have had a great time; he didn't seem too intent on leaving when we picked him up. :-)