Swing low

These days I do mostly Java web programming, but I also worked on PCGen for a few years where I cut my teeth on Swing (Rule #1 of large, distributed open-source programming: change as little as possible to get your work done — this is the opposite of close-at-hand XP programming where refactoring rules; I'm embarrassed to even contemplate this). And BileBlog has it right: Swing programming is hard. I never felt completely happy with the results, always with the niggle in the back of my mind that my work could be done better. It was easy to fall into custom widgets (why is JTabbedPane so minimally functional?) and such without addressing the bigger picture. Perhaps someday I can get back to the problem.