Java and me.

So, me and Java have this love-hate thing going. I really want to learn to be a better Java programmer, but I hate the Framework. It is just so friggin huge, and I have no idea where the stuff that I want to use is.
Second, what is up with Factories? There are so many classes that will not let you create a direct instance of them and require you to use a factory. I can't seem to see the advantage of doing it this way. Maybe I am just dumb.

Ah, well guess I will have to suck it up and learn all this stuff. The bottom line is I am tired of being tied to Microsoft and feeling like my skills in Java are not good enough to get me a job as a Java developer. Plus, those Java cats get all the cool toys like Eclipse and Netbeans. Not that Visual Studio is inferior, just that it is very tied to microsoft and the .NET framework. No Ruby, no Python, no PHP. IronPy or IronRuby doesn't count because, (guess what) it is tied to the .NET Framework. What if I wanna build on Rails? Netbeans it is. Andriod? Eclipse. (Android development makes my head hurt by the way. Why do they [Google] have to make up new terms for every API they create?)

Edit 6/2012: Looking back at this.... Man, I was dumb. Really Brett? Factories? Sheesh.

Music of the Day: Halestorm. Again, sorry mom.