Monday, August 28, 2006
Awesome Download Speeds
Fall semester is starting and with it, I have a Java programming class (CS 3230). It looks like it's going to be a fun class where I will learn to basically be a Java expert. Hopefully, this will be one of the four last classes I will ever have to take (until I decide to further my education by persuing a Masters.)
During the course of the lecture today, my instructor indicated that we will be using the barebones Java compiler (command line). I have no problem with this as I generally like working on the command line. It gives me this curious sense of power and control. Microsoft's GUI feels to me like death warmed over. I feel like much of the control over the operating system is hidden from me, but this is a discussion for another time. When my instructor said that we will be using the barebones compiler, he also mentioned that there are graphical IDEs out there for Java and that his personal favorite is one called Eclipse. He said that if we want, we can install an IDE and play with it, but that we really should learn to write code and compile it using the least common denominator.
Well, I kept what he said in mind and decided to try installing Eclipse on my Linux box, Persephone. I chose to install it on Persephone because my Windows boxes are missing the Java SDK. I decided that since it is so easy to connect to Persephone that I would do all of my Java stuff from there rather than deal with Windows. Besides, Windows doesn't do the CLI thing very well.
So when I went to download Eclipse, I selected the directory to save it to and clicked [OK]. At that point, the Firefox download manager opened and showed the download status. Never once during the 117MB download did the speed dip below 1024KB/sec. Yes, that's 1MB per second download. It took all of about a minute to download that 117MB file.
That was my adventure with surprisingly high download speeds today.
During the course of the lecture today, my instructor indicated that we will be using the barebones Java compiler (command line). I have no problem with this as I generally like working on the command line. It gives me this curious sense of power and control. Microsoft's GUI feels to me like death warmed over. I feel like much of the control over the operating system is hidden from me, but this is a discussion for another time. When my instructor said that we will be using the barebones compiler, he also mentioned that there are graphical IDEs out there for Java and that his personal favorite is one called Eclipse. He said that if we want, we can install an IDE and play with it, but that we really should learn to write code and compile it using the least common denominator.
Well, I kept what he said in mind and decided to try installing Eclipse on my Linux box, Persephone. I chose to install it on Persephone because my Windows boxes are missing the Java SDK. I decided that since it is so easy to connect to Persephone that I would do all of my Java stuff from there rather than deal with Windows. Besides, Windows doesn't do the CLI thing very well.
So when I went to download Eclipse, I selected the directory to save it to and clicked [OK]. At that point, the Firefox download manager opened and showed the download status. Never once during the 117MB download did the speed dip below 1024KB/sec. Yes, that's 1MB per second download. It took all of about a minute to download that 117MB file.
That was my adventure with surprisingly high download speeds today.
Comments:
Post a Comment
