@amanda.hinchman-dominguez There's a Spek channel here which is a unit testing framework that could help a lot with Task #2. It's another thing to learn, but the IDE support is good. IMHO shoring up the code generation part with some good unit tests would help keep the development from backsliding as the program grows.

You're absolutely right. I'll go ahead and join the channel, but it may take me a week or two to actually join the conversation. Thanks @carlw!

@amanda.hinchman-dominguez Instead of just putting everything in a StringBuilder, consider making domain objects that fit together in a hierarchy, and give them a

render()

function that can generate the code, maybe even taking children or parents + properties into consideration. That makes for a much nicer coding environment, and you'll be able to turn around much quicker.

hey hey 🙂 I forget, can I share an itemviewmodel object between my controller and view?

@amanda.hinchman-dominguez TornadoFX is pretty fleshed out and relatively mature at this point, and anything you can do in vanilla JavaFX is done more fluidly in TornadoFX imo. You may occasionally run into missing builders for third party controls like those in ControlsFX, but you can improvise new builders with MyControl().apply { }

@pike Yes. Here's an example where @edvin uses "by inject()" the ItemViewModel. He seems to have it only in the View, but the Controller can use the by inject too if you inherit from Controller.

thanks carl, I knew I saw it somewhere

A few months ago, edvin and i put some posts together where i'd write a Kotlin/JavaFX app and edvin would convert it to tornadofx

check out his channel because we did a few "live coding" sessions too

cool, basically I just want to share a form to a controller without having to pass it in the function 🙂

Here's a video

thanks! that's pretty cool, I'll check it out in a few minutes.

@amanda.hinchman-dominguez Hey regarding the generating code part of your program, have a look at http://www.stringtemplate.org/ it'i a templating engine which is used by antlr to generate the parser code. I know is java an some of the api will not feel right in kotlin but you can easily write your on little wrapper DSL in kotlin so you can use the builder pattern but you don't have to write a whole templating engine from scratch 😉

@abhinay wait! No spoilers

@edvin this is a prime slot. Everyone with a long plane ride can download and listen

Great job on the podcast @edvin ! 🎧

@carlw Thanks! I didn't prepare well enough, but it turned out ok I think. Very good timing indeed, right before Java One 🙂

Awesome interview! I am still amazed by the easy TFX allows do develop UIs

Listened to it before work this morning. Great job. I agree with the point you made about TFX making desktop development exciting again. I had been dreading starting UI development for a side project, thinking I would do a web app because it's 2017, but TFX has shown itself to be quite viable, and I'm actually excited to get started with it now

@voddan @Carlton Whitehead Thank you guys, that means a lot 🙂 And Carlton, we're here if you need anything as you get started!

@carlw I would really like to do more of those videos where we change JavaFX to TornadoFX or try to improve TornadoFX examples or discuss different approaches. Let's do some more after Java One 🙂

i may be getting too familiar with tornadofx 😬

maybe a controls initiative? i saw someone looking for a Ribbon-style menu the other day

@carlw Haha, yeah you might! A ribbon style menu would fit right into TornadoFX Core IMO. It is universally useful for many applications and I feel like we should just include it. We should create an issue and enumerate features and functionality.

i did some C# coding a few months ago and noticed some interesting controls

but i think Java 9 is probably the most important initiative