Java's BorderLayout and Chauvinism

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Raphaël ParréePublished on

The BorderLayout in Java Swing allows you to layout components in five regions: north, south, east, west, and center. The problem here is that, apart from "center", the cardinal directions (north, south) have no relation with the relative directions down, up, right and left. This must be somewhere assumed by a Java developer. When you thought they are the same, and north is up/south is down etc, then you might be suffering from Northern Hemisphere Chauvinism (guess we also have to think Christmas is in the winter right?)

For those that still think north is up and south is down take a look at these images of the world upsidedownmap

Note, Java 1.4 introduced PAGE_START, PAGE_END, LINE_START, and LINE_END, these map to the cardinal directions.