Dependency Hell

I seem to be stuck in Dependency Hell when trying to write some Java code that will compile Java source; I'm trying to use Apache JCI but it's turning into a nightmare. Here is the list of all its dependencies, which need to be downloaded one by one (at least, I can see nowhere where they are all included in one nice download).

But unfortunately, at least one of the dependencies (as I could see no point looking for any more) doesn't exist, and I can't find it after lots of Googling. So, as far as I can see, there is no way to use Apache Commons JCI.

My Adage

Everyone else seems to have one, so here's my "programming adage":-

"The worst thing you can do as a programmer is write new code."

Discuss.

A Bite at Java Bytes

After using Java for so long, I'm still surprised that you can't write something like:-


public byte addNums(byte a, byte b) {
return a+b;
}

// Call the function:-
addNums(1, 2); // Get a compiler error??


The compiler error is because the 1 and 2 are ints by default, and the function is expecting bytes. Surely it must be able to work out that 1 and 2 are bytes in this case, not ints? To get it to compile you need to write:-

addNums((byte)1, (byte)2); // Get a compiler error??

I don't normally mind verbose code as long as it adds information for the programmer, but this is pointless.