I broke out an old notebook that contained ideas for programs I wanted to write. Figured it would provide some inspiration for some practice Java programs. I started with an Address Rolodex program. It was nothing special. I had to relearn some of the GUI programming tricks I picked up last semester. Luckily I had to look up a few specifics. I recalled some of the tricks after a while. For example, I knew it was easiest to implement the ActionListener interface with my JFrame object. That way I coud just addActionListener(this) to set up my events. Much simpler than separate or inner clases.
The mechanics of storing my addresses were simply an ArrayList. Had to make a couple design decisions, like figuring out where the latest address you added goes in the list (I chose the front). I started getting a prototype down with a FlowLayout that looked terrible. All the controls were all over the place depending on the size of the window. At the end, I decided to use a BorderLayout. It does not look awesome. But at least the rows and columns line up nicely. That's because each part of the BorderLayout is a JPanel containing a GridLayout that does the dirty work.
Now I need to choose project number two. I figure I have all summer to relearn the Java skills I have deep down inside somewhere. I was even contemplating picking up a community college class to use to drive my Java coding. A friend mentioned such a class she is taking next semester. I checked the schedule of classes and found it only meet during the day. Us nine-to-five types cannot register for classes like that which interfere with the work day.
