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Location:
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Memorial Hall - Committee Room 2
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Date:
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Wednesday, October 28
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Assignment:
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Chapters 1-3 (and Exercises)
Download and Install JDK 1.1.6 and Docs
Glenn Shukster, GMS Computing
members.tor.shaw.wave.ca/~gms
 As promised in this year's inaugural speech, (reproduced, for your
convenience, on the site's Diary page, 1998 09 08 ) we're launching our Study Group SIG, starting with Java. In fact, the chosen
book, Ivor Horton's Beginning Java (Wrox Press, http://www.wrox.com ), is the one used by ZD University ( http://www.zdu.com ). The book retails for $56 CDN, but TDUG has arranged ongoing discounts for our members from The World's Biggest Bookstore
and Chapters. Details of how to obtain your discount More Value Card (regularly $25, but available to our members for only $10, and good for 10% discounts off regularly priced
books), will be included in a members-only e-mail.
In the meantime, I've purchased a copy of the book, and have started auditing the ZDU course (Java for Programmers, Part I). Sadly, I'm six weeks behind (started late), so there's a
lot of catching up to do. The instructor, Kerry Hammil, is a contributing author and technical reviewer of the book, and wrote Appendix B. If you're not sure you want to blow 50 bucks
on a Java book, we've tracked down a free download for you: Bruce Eckel's 800 page opus, Thinking in Java, available in a variety of formats at http://www.eckelobjects.com Then, of course, there's the free Java Development Kit (JDK) 1.1.6, and accompanying documentation, which you can get at http://www.javasoft.com . This is the accepted Java reference implementation. (Well, accepted by everyone except Microsoft, of course...
;-) The Study Group SIG will meet the last Wednesday of the month at the library, and will cover at least 3 chapters a month. (ZDU does one a week.) Once we've digested Java, we'll
move on to other topics of relevance to developers: there's no shortage of things to learn! In case you're asking yourself why a Delphi group is spending so much effort on another
language, allow me to quote from the previously referenced speech:
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...while we continue to support Delphi just as energetically and passionately as ever, we’ll look beyond the boundaries of the Wintel alliance, to the lush shores of
Unix servers, and begin training our members on alternate technologies. We’ll do this through... study group SIGs, which have proven effective in other user groups. We
look forward, with hope and anticipation, to the day when Inprise will unleash upon the world a Linux version of Delphi. But while we wait, we’ll take the opportunity to
bone up on Java, Linux and Python.
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Review:
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SGJava has had it's first meeting, attended by about ten of us. We were pleased to welcome Rob Mitchell from our sister club, WinDAT. We reviewed the first four chapters, pausing to
investigate demos, docs, source code and run the odd example. Stay tuned for a Java Resources page of links to interesting Java sites. Glenn Shukster and I, have contacted Mark
Kerbel, president of the Java User Group of Toronto ( http://www.jug.org ), and he graciously invited our user group to their meeting
Tue Nov 3, 1998, 6:30pm, at the Royal York Hotel's Salon A. For agenda and info on James Gosling's talks (he's considered the Father of Java) see http://www.jug.org/agenda/.
Alfred Ayache
The Last Byte, Inc
alfred@lastbyte-inc.com
www.lastbyte-inc.com
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Photos:
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