Taunt-O-Matic development

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Devlopment notes.

Status

Pretty good progress on the Java version so far. Breakdown by functionality:

GUI

I have designed a simple GUI (basically just a text output window with process button). I have written a console interface, so I can use the same methods for output in text mode. It looks pretty good unless I resize it :(.

There are some problems with how to pass error messages to the GUI (probably a Java noob thing).

Unicode input

The program can peek into files and determine the proper encoding to use. This means that the program can now read UTF-16 and UTF-8 files as long as the former have a byte order mark. Go me.

Identifying files

Some preliminiary work done. Traversing file structures is very easy in Java.

Program settings

Default and user settings will be stored in property files. No work done. I need to decide on a good file structure. A simple GUI which lets the user select directories would probably be a good idea.

Processing @ tags

I need to read up on how Java handles regexps.

Classes

Design needed for representation of binds/loops/etc, but I would have had to redo that bit in Perl anyway.

Miscellaneous

Why Java?

My employer sent me to Java training, so now I'm thinking about writing the Taunt-O-Matic in Java. There are good reasons to do that:

• I get to practice my new Java skills on a simple project
• I can hopefully convince my employer that I need a few days to digest the course (true enough), so I should be able to fool around with this project at work for a few days.
• Java can use Perl regexps, so the I can use the existing regexps from the old version.
• Redesign should mean that it's less of a hack than the current Perl script.
• I should be able to get some help from O'Malley, Tuft and Hack if required.