Slow day….more sugar/java needed
April 13th, 2004 by HenPainful day. I’m trying to cut back on the sugar before I hit diabetes and if the day had ended at 6pm I’d have managed. However I needed a quick jack [3 toblerone pieces] before a meeting about the Java teaching I’ve agreed to do at 6:30.
It’s going to be interesting. Teach programming and Java to a dozen newbies in 14 3 hour classes. While I’m going with Eckel’s TIJ, I’m not going to go the purist OO route and overload them with objects, though I do have a nice idea for the first class. We’ll play I-spy.
Basically the idea is that after the first go, they have to start I-spying things about the first object I-spy’d. I’ll either tell them to I-spy something about the coffee mug they chose first, or something that can be done to/with/by it. Then I’ll use noun/verb/adjective as a similie, and finally point out that that is all there is to objects. Maybe a bit silly for a graduate management class, but maybe it’s just pointy-haired enough to succeed.
After that I’ll have to get elbows dirty with the syntax. This always freaks people out [at least from my Pascal days it did] and I’ll need to cover syntax quickly and get a lot of experience with the compiler in the first few classes. #1 lesson always being:
“99 errors is not a bad thing. It could just be 1 error with 98 symptoms. Solve the first one, and worry about the others later. “
Then it’s on to the various APIs of Java, including parts with language tie-ins like Exceptions.
My first ever time in which I’m the instructor and not the assistant or just the helpful person in the corner. Also my first experience of the American education system since I was a 10 year old in Dallas, so we both might get a shock.
My biggest decision at the moment is whether to buy Keynote or use my preferred HTML frames structure. That and writing a syllabus.