JDK 6 released

JDK 6 was released two days ago but i never had to time to blog about it. Unforchantly no deb is provided by sun and java-package 0.27 (the current stable release of java-package) does not support jdk 6. java-package is software that helps package java for debian based systems. I at first just did a "hack install" by extracting the .bin provided by Sun and then copying it to /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.6.0.00 and then making a symbolic link to it in the same directory named java-1.6.0-sun (Note: i was just following convention). Then i edited /etc/jvm and added /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.6.0-sun. Then i went and edited my netbeans.conf file (located at /opt/Sun/netbeans-5.5/etc) and changed the jdk home to jdk 6. I Started netbeans up and was impressed by the speed improvements but not with the interface. I was expecting GTK LAF right out of the box. But after a little searching i found how to get it working. Add --laf com.sun.java.swing.plaf.gtk.GTKLookAndFeel to you netbeans.conf startup arguments. I found that the tabs looked ugly so i found that Ramon Ramos had a nbm that fixed this. Get it here. Here is what netbeans looks like with GTK LAF the Human theme and the gtk nbm by Ramon:
As you can see the only UI errors are in the right corner of netbeans. Just a little problem which i'm sure will be fixed for Netbeans 6.0 (which is looking sooo awesome btw...i need to try the latest milestone out and when i do i will report back with screen shots and my analysis.

Endless Information

I am setting some goals for myself for this year and in the future...Here is a list of all the things i would like to acomplish this school year (September to June).
1. Work hard at school and stay on the honor role all year
2. Do the best i can do (give a full effort)

Programming objectives (over the next couple of years)
1. Make sure i know all of J2SE like the back of my hand and make sure i know all the new Mustang API's
2. Learn J2ME and all of its API's
3. Learn J2EE and all the fun stuff that comes along with it.
4. Learn C
5. Learn C++
6. Learn the linux C API's (gtk)
7. Learn the linux C++ API's (gtkmm)
8. Learn C# and Mono
9. Learn some scripting languages like js, perl, groovy, beanshell, etc...
10. Learn Python
11. Keep up to date on all of the langauges and thier API's

It is quite the list but i think it is possable to do...it is a lot of learning but it will be fun :)

New Module Development Tutorials available

Some new Module Development tutorials are availble at netbeans.org regarding Nodes API. They are very usefull (i have already finished one and am on my way to reading the other). You can check them out here or can read more info about them here.