[Tutor] *OFF-TOPIC* Good Java mailing list/Java StackOverflowError

[Danny Yoo]

On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 Dragonfirebane at aol.com wrote:

>     I recently began learning Java and was wondering what the generally
> best-thought-of java mailing list was.


Hi Dragonfirebane,


Try the official Java forums:

    http://forum.java.sun.com/

Their forums are very active, so I'm sure you can get some good support
from the folks there as you're learning Java.


> On the other hand, if anyone on this list has some knowledge of Java,
> please keep reading.

[text cut]

> I am trying to write a program to convert numbers (floating and
> negative, too) from the given base to base 10.

[text cut]


Hmmm... Try asking that on the Java forums.  It's not that I have an overt
anti-Java bias here.  But I'm starting to worry about this off-topic
thread is really starting to go way off topic.  Remember, this is foremost
a Python-tutor mailing list.  *grin*

The folks on the Java forums seem pretty helpful: give them a go first.

(And if you find some kind of ecunumical forum for beginning programmers
in many languages, let us know; I'd love to be involved.)


Just as a note: if you see StackOverflowError, that's symptomatic of a
runaway recursion.  In Python, the analogous problem shows up as a
RuntimeError:

###
>>> def fact(x):
...     if x == 0:
...         return 1
...     return x * fact(x-1)
...
>>> fact(5)
120
>>> fact(-1)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
  File "<stdin>", line 4, in fact
  File "<stdin>", line 4, in fact
  File "<stdin>", line 4, in fact
  File "<stdin>", line 4, in fact
  File "<stdin>", line 4, in fact
  File "<stdin>", line 4, in fact
[... lots and lots of text cut]
RuntimeError: maximum recursion depth exceeded
###

So something similar may be responsible for the bug in the Java code.


Good luck to you!