The SquizLogKeith Pitty takes a squiz at the world. |
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The SquizLogKeith Pitty takes a squiz at the world. |
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"Move your focus from the task to the person", said the trainer, moving as she said this to emphasise the importance of the shift.
This advice, from the instructor of a Train the Trainer course about six years ago, obviously made an impression on me at the time and I've tried to put it into practice ever since with varying degrees of success.
Tomorrow will mark the end of my two week stint of teaching a class of students everything there is to know about Java and J2EE. Well, as much as one can hope to achieve in that vein within a fortnight, anyway! Fortunately the course is well-structured with case study exercises interspersed with discussions, for which their are accompanying slides.
Having slides to guide a presentation or discussion can sometimes backfire, however. As I was approaching the point today where I was about to introduce JSTL, I remembered that the slides for that topic consisted of a dull collection showing the syntax for all of the tags. Hardly the stuff to inspire a class discussion. So, I remembered the advice from years ago and decided that a demo would do a better job of keeping the students' attention and helping them learn the benefits of using JSTL tags rather than JSP scriptlets. Then I was able to skip quickly through the slides, confident that the important message had got through.
So, my tip to other trainers is: beware of the "presentation slides trap"; be prepared to diverge from the sequence they imply for the sake of the students' learning experience.
"Can you recommend a good Object-Oriented Analysis and Design book?"
That was one question a student in my J2EE class asked today. Thinking back to my own experience I remembered reading A Book of Object-Oriented Knowledge by Brian Henderson-Sellers when I was attempting to understand OO concepts in the early 1990s. But that was written in 1992 and so, of course, pre-dated Design Patterns, UML, RUP and Agile approaches.
This evening I remembered that my colleague Mark highly recommends Craig Larman's Applying UML and Patterns as an introductory OOA/D text. It certainly receives high praise from luminaries such as Martin Fowler and John Vlissides.
Any other recommendations?
Update: I notice that Larman's book is included in this list, which also contains some other well-known titles and authors in the OOA/D field.
This morning's news was music to my ears.
Having eagerly awaited the First Test, last night I had been watching the first day's play unfold on television.
When I went to bed a little after midnight England were no wickets for ten in reply to Australia's admittedly disappointing total of 190. The Pommie commentators were positively crowing about how well Trescothick and Strauss were batting, concentrating on accumulating runs. The expectation was clear. They were going to show the Aussies how batsmen are supposed to play in Test cricket.
The first ball after the tea break, delivered by none other than GD McGrath, signalled the end of those hopes.
Trescothick c Langer b McGrath 4. McGrath's 500th Test wicket. Ten overs later "Pigeon" had taken 5-for and reduced England's innings to tatters. Five for 21. Even at stumps, following a recovery of sorts, they were in a position few would have thought possible when Australia were 5 for 97 at lunch. At the end of day one, England had three first innings wickets in tact and were still 98 runs in arrears.
Isn't Test cricket a wonderful game?
Update: Fittingly, McGrath earned his third successive Man of the Match award at Lords as he took four second innings wickets to help Australia wrap up the Test.
After enduring too many one dayers, I'm pleased that The Ashes series of Test Matches is about to start.
It promises to be a fascinating series with many of the Australians on their final tour of England and extremely motivated to extend Australia's current reign as holders of The Ashes. And then there's the Poms. Will they live up to expectations? Will Harmison, Flintoff and Pieterson (formerly of my old club Sydney University) help England actually regain the little urn that they lost in 1989? Time will tell.
My prediction is that Australia will win 3-1.
I know this is old news but this collection of JVM options, courtesy of Joseph D. Mocker, is an excellent resource.
Congratulations to Tiger Woods on winning The Open Championship at St Andrews.
Ten majors by the age of 29 is an awesome achievement. He's slipping though: he only beat his nearest rival by five shots this time whereas he won by eight shots last time he won The Open at St Andrews in 2000.
Next time I curse myself having played another poor shot in the Saturday comp at Wyong I'll just have to remind myself that I'll never get within a bull's roar of playing golf like Tiger. I guess, for us mere golfing mortals, that's why we're granted handicaps.
A student in my class asked a question that stumped me this morning.
He was curious to know if there was a recommended concise book about Java. I had to confess that one didn't come to mind. Someone else mentioned Bruce Eckel's Thinking in Java, which we agreed was an excellent resource but not concise. I thought of Joshua Bloch's Effective Java but that, to my mind, didn't quite fit the request.
A quick Google search revealed Peter Sestoft's Java Precisely, which has received excellent reviews at Amazon and has a new edition that covers Java 5 due out next month.
Any opinions about Java Precisely would be welcome, along with any other suggestions for concise Java books.
I've been looking after the kids this week whilst my wife has been away at a uni residential in Armidale.
So I've had the opportunity to rediscover some domestic skills and, even if I do say so myself, some of the results haven't been too bad...
"Why hasn't anybody mentioned Iraq?"
That was my wife's reaction as we watched on TV the reporting of the horrific explosions in London. It's a fair question and it doesn't take much imagination to draw a link between Britain's involvement in the Iraq war and yesterday's bombings.
But it isn't politically correct to make such suggestions. British MP George Galloway, who has had the temerity to suggest that Londoners have paid the price for Britain sending soldiers to Iraq and Afghanistan, discovered that when he was expelled from the Labour Party in 2003 by Tony Blair for his opposition to the Iraq war.
The mainstream media also appears to be at pains to avoid political controversy. Within that sphere it has been hard to find any serious analysis that may be perceived as radical. I had to go to an alternative source, where I found a link to this article by Mike Marqusee. It's worth a read if you're prepared to consider an anti-war perspective.
Of course the bombings were a deplorable and senseless waste of life. But does it help to deny the political backdrop to them? And will it ultimately help to focus on "counter-terrorism" and bringing the attackers to justice?
Justice. Now there's an interesting word in this context.
As Tim Bray says, how about trying to figure out why the attackers went to such lengths. Tim says:
I’m not saying that there’s any political grievance to which attacking New York, Madrid or London is a reasonable response. But when something is driving enough people into insane belief systems that we see regular explosions in our cities, it would be smart to care—a lot—what that something is. Because, on the evidence, I don’t think the leaders of the Western world have a clue.I'm not going to hold my breath, but it would be a step in the right direction to geniunely try to understand the perspective of Islamic extremists and what motivates them.
Maybe they perceive some injustice?
At last. Some hopeful news about intermittent server errors that I (and, it would seem, many other Movable Type users) have been experiencing since upgrading to version 3.1x.
There's no patch just yet, but at least they appear to have identified the cause of the problem.
As a supporter of Oxfam and the Make Poverty History campaign, I'm proudly wearing my white band today.
As Oxfam says, the global Make Poverty History campaign calls for an end to the injustice of poverty through more and better aid, debt relief and fairer trade.
Whilst it's easy to be cynical and resign oneself to the view that poverty will always exist, I'm heartened by the efforts of those organising this campaign and the fact that the Internet enables it to be more effective.
Hopefully the campaign will lead to real improvements in people's lives soon.