Nick Johnson

You can always tell an overengineered API when you try to do something really simplistic and it takes you about 30 lines of code and 8 different classes.

For example: I want to read an image, make it smaller, and write it out as a JPG with a given quality. This is a fairly common and simple task. Here's the code:

        BufferedImage sourceImage
        try {
            sourceImage = ImageIO.read(new ByteArrayInputStream(imageData));
        } catch (IOException e) {
            return new ServiceResult(ServiceResult.STATUS.FAIL_HARD,
                    "Unable to read image; image is unreadable or an unsupported type", e);
        }

        // figure out the target width and height
        
        BufferedImage newImage =  getScaledInstance(sourceImage, targetWidth, targetHeight, RenderingHints.VALUE_INTERPOLATION_BILINEAR, true);

        ByteArrayOutputStream output = new ByteArrayOutputStream();

        Iterator imageWritersByMIMEType = ImageIO.getImageWritersByMIMEType("image/jpeg");
        if (imageWritersByMIMEType.hasNext()) {
            ImageWriter writer = imageWritersByMIMEType.next();
            writer.setOutput(new MemoryCacheImageOutputStream(output));
            ImageWriteParam iwp = writer.getDefaultWriteParam();
            iwp.setCompressionMode(ImageWriteParam.MODE_EXPLICIT);
            iwp.setCompressionQuality(COMPRESSION_QUALITY);
            
            
            IIOImage tmpImage = new IIOImage(newImage, null, null);
            try {
                writer.write(null, tmpImage, iwp);
            } catch (IOException e) {
                return new ServiceResult(ServiceResult.STATUS.FAIL_HARD, "Exception while creating jpeg content", e);
            }
        } else {
            return new ServiceResult(ServiceResult.STATUS.FAIL_HARD, "Couldn't find a jpeg encoder!");
        }

        return new ServiceResult(ServiceResult.STATUS.OK, "Created avatar successfully", output.toByteArray());

So we had to use: BufferedImage, ImageIO, ByteArrayInputStream, ByteArrayOutputStream, Graphics2D (inside the getScaledInstance method), ImageWriter, ImageWriteParam, MemoryCacheImageOutputStream and IIOImage. (Not counting any java.lang, java.util or exception stuff.)

Why can't ImageIO read a byte array? (I can almost forgive the design decision to work mainly with streams.) Why does an ImageWriter need to write to a MemoryCacheImageOutputStream (an ordinary OutputStream won't do)? What's with ImageWriter#setOutput taking an Object? Do we really expect to have multiple image writers for a given MIME type such that we need an iterator? Why can't an ImageWriter write a BufferedImage? Why is there a getDefaultWriteParam, if that's the only WriteParam there is to get?

javax.imageio has got to be the absolutely most retarded API I have seen to date, with the closest runner-up being jTidy.

Labels: api, javax.imageio, overengineering, software, stupid