Colorize

I have been very busy with homework so I haven't even had time to write about it here. The first project for my Java class was Colorize. It involved reading a Java file and turning it into a colored, formatted html file using a finite state machine. It was due on Tuesday at midnight, and I started Sunday. I spent all afternoon, probably 1pm to 11pm working on it and editing and debugging it was very frustrating. On Monday I decided to rewrite the entire thing. I set up the ground structure Monday and wrote most of it Tuesday afternoon and evening. All programming should g that way. Stuff just worked! Because my design was better I was able to add functionality without messing up anything else and I was able to easily debug because I knew where the problem was. I worked right up until about 11:45pm, but I wasn't rushed.

I am not sure I like programming using finite state machines. It seems a step backwards from using methods and objects. I want to say "here is an algorithm I will run many times, I will put it in a method, but that is not how one uses finite state machines. On the other hand I think it would be very difficult to write this program without using finite state machines.