Does my boolean logic make sense?

Question

Hello. I am currently working on a linked list assignment, but for some reason my boolean doesn't seem to do what I want it to do. can someone take a look to see why I am getting a black screen?
public boolean addEmployee(Employee newEmployee) //if there is fresh meat coming, returns true. I think something's wrong here
      EmployeeNode previous = search(newEmployee);
      EmployeeNode present= setPresent(previous);
      EmployeeNode add = new EmployeeNode();
          boolean freshMeat = false;
          add.data = new Employee(newEmployee);
          while((present!=null)&&(present.data.compareTo(newEmployee)<0))
          {     previous = present;
               add.link = present;
               present = add;
                System.out.println("present is: "+present.data);
                System.out.println("previous is: "+previous.data);
               freshMeat = true;
          return freshMeat;
   }if I remove the while loop and the condition, it will display everything that I am adding to it:
public boolean addEmployee(Employee newEmployee) //if there is fresh meat coming, returns true. I think something's wrong here
      EmployeeNode previous = search(newEmployee);
      EmployeeNode present= setPresent(previous);
      EmployeeNode add = new EmployeeNode();
          boolean freshMeat = false;
          add.data = new Employee(newEmployee);
          previous = present;
          add.link = present;
          present = add;
          System.out.println("present is:" + present.data);
          freshMeat = true;
          return freshMeat;
   }why can't I have my previous.data display if i type it into SOPLN?

Answer 1

I did a couple of linkedlist assignments not long ago, of which one is employee related.
I thought that the method names are a bit ambigous to me, and it will definitely help if you can outline your algo.
Putting your while condition to words, i have, if (current node exists) AND (newEmployee is "bigger" than the employee data in the current node) perform loop content. I am not sure if that is what you want.
Furthermore, I am not sure if you are traversing forward or backward, or if you are traversing your list at all in your while loop.
if your add.link refers to to next node in the list, shouldn't you do something like
previous = present;
present = add.link;
....again, it will greatly help if you are provide more info on what exactly are you trying to do.