Well arrived back from London Monday afternoon - visited Sam & Hud . . . some of the tube detours stood me in good stead for my entry into the world of Java - meaning they were both fairly challenging.
Technically I started last week Thursday 21 September - Induction - well I managed to arrive late - what do you mean your not surprised??? When I arrived - only about 10 minutes late - the class had, I was told been split into 2 groups - just as well someone was standing in the foyer to assist the stragglers . . namely me!
Well I think the induction was all of about 1 hour in duration. I knew I was in the right place when I saw the SA flag on the screen and then our lecturer explained that he liked to use
the two legs of the Y to show us what this week is all about. Its a new addition to the course to try and ensure that when the classes start in earnest we are all more or less basically on the same level with Java. So to bring those with little or no experience (that includes me) up to at least a basic understanding level and to use the experts in the class as mentors - so it is an attempt to bring about convergence of the two streams / levels. Also to give those who don't want to do Java (either can't cope or it would be a waste of time for them) an indication of whether they should be applying to do another special subject. We were given course overviews - timetables - and told we did not need to come to classes on the next day, Friday - just as well as I had booked to go to London as I had assumed (incorrectly it seems) that it was a holiday - but it all worked out in the end. After our welcome speech - we were left to our own devices - soon turned out I had not received the necessary documents in the post.I and a number of other classmates (Christopher, Steven & Nicole) went down to Registry to see if we could get to the bottom of the matter - Steven & Chirstopher seemed to get sorted and it turned out I was supposed to have let them know I was definitely taking up the offered slot on the course - frankly can't remember ever receiving the letter - but at the time thought they were referring to something else - and told them that I had returned the form long ago - standard reply when confused - this elicited the standard reply as to when had I posted it - to which I gave the most logical retort of I can't remember, some while ago. Luckily I had my letter from the Department inviting me to the Induction as she didn't seemed to impressed by my insistence that I had returned documentation. Anyway she agreed , somewhat reluctanty to print off the necessary documentation. I then departed as there was not much more I could do.
Reported back on Tuesday (Monday was a holiday) Glasgow September weekend - Edinburgh had theirs the weekend before. Well our programme was structured so that we had Java for breakfast / lunch and tea . . . . (breakfast / lunch & dinner - if you prefer) we were literally thrown in the deep end and left to sink or swim. Colin English - tried his best and in my opinion improved significantly as the week progressed by trying to make it more interactive - giving us more exercises to do and stopping and illustrating principles with actual code, as he went along. It wasn't his fault but by the time it got to Friday afternoon - and he flashed up a String []
literal of ("We shouldn't be here . . .") or something along those line = you could almost hear an audible groan of Yes! we agree - it was a long week (Ok 4 days).
We had 1 other class - Information Retrieval - which will be on Friday every week - we are a combined class for this - Library Masters as well as another Computer Science group - so for us the 25 CIT (Computer & Internet Technologies) students, we are not used such a large group.
Bought my first two books - Objects First with Java; using BlueJ - Barnes , DJ & Kolling, M - £36.99 as well as Head First Java - Sierra, K & Bates, B - £31.95 (got my 1st student discount 10% less. Registered for my various email accounts amckenzi@cis.strath.ac.uk as well as andrew.mckenzie@strath.ac.uk - there is also a separate area which holds announcements for you - registered for access to online journals and took out 2 books from library a Java & an Information Retrieval book . . . .
The campus is unique in that it is slap bang in the middle of Glasgow - 1 block from Queen street station - everything seems to be uphill - physical layout of campus & library - may just be my imagination.On a more important note I have worked out where to get a latte in the morning. The Union building - 8 floors has all the pubs - live music venues and larger eating halls as well as games rooms - large screens for sport events etc., - will have to investigate in more depth still - beers are 99p at time - regualr price £1.20 (which in itself is about 1/2 normal price.
Well I am excited and enthusiastic about the rest of the course - 9 months of class (interespersed with assingments and exams ) followe d by 3 months research and dissertation.
website: http://www.strath.ac.uk/
my early Java - code programs - straight from Headfirst . . . .but yippee! it actually works . . .
public class PhraseoMatic {
public static void main (String [] args) {
// 1 - words
String [] wordList1 = {"Rangers", "Celtic", "Motherwell", "Kilmarnock","Dumbarton"};
String [] wordList2 = {"Rex", "BooBoo", "Mika", "24/7","Big", "SHort", "Loud", "Music", "Queer", "KFC", "Big Mac", "Boat", "Sheep", "Work"};
String [] wordList3 = {"New", "Old1", "Fear","Cod", "Gold", "2334", "Java"};
// 2 - how many words in each list??? Lets find out
int oneLength = wordList1.length;
int twoLength = wordList2.length;
int threeLength = wordList3.length;
/* 3 - generate 3 random numbers??? What for so we can randomly extract the words that exist at these instances and put them into a sentence???? Lets see? */
int rand1 = (int) (Math.random() * oneLength) ;
int rand2 = (int) (Math.random() * twoLength) ;
int rand3 = (int) (Math.random() * threeLength) ;
// now we have all the building blocks - letsbuild a phrase
String phrase = wordList1[rand1] + " " + wordList2[rand2] + " " + wordList3[rand3];
// all very well - but lets see what it has generated . . . . can't wait
System.out.println ("What we need is a " + " " + phrase);
}
}
