Gargleblaster.org » open university

Visual Programming with Java

Merlijn — Sat, 23 Jul 2005 12:53:34 +0000

For my Open University course I have started with “Visual Programming with Java”.
I know it’s more fun as Discrete Math :)
And it’s quite fun to finally “learn” programming, as I’m a autodidact. The level is very very basic, but that doesn’t matter to me. In the last years my experience is that it can be very helpfull to really learn the basics.

The real fun is that I have to use windows again. The course uses Borland Jbuilder 8, with a license which only runs on windows XP according to the manual, but I use it on my very old windows98 machine without any problems.
And oh boy, what is an IDE fun. Programming like playing with LEGO.

“You have forgotten a semi-colon right here”.
Oh…thanks :)

Instead of digging through 2500 lines of code where that missing T_SPACE is…
Java is also fun to work with. Very straightforward and easier than C (no memory management / garbage collection needed). I really can tell know where PHP has it’s roots. It really helps me getting some insight in OOP concepts, which are used in PHP 5 as well.

btw…writing this on windows, WordPress really looks better in Firefox as in Safari…damn.

Databases

Merlijn — Tue, 03 May 2005 09:25:13 +0000

YES!

I passed my databases exam!

Course description (Dutch).

I’m sooo happy.
Now on with Discrete Math.

Discrete Math

Merlijn — Sun, 17 Apr 2005 17:22:03 +0000

Having probably made my last databases-exam, I started a new course, Discrete Math A.
The last time I studied math was more than 9 years ago, and I found myself puzzling why
(2n+1)² was not (4n² + 1).

After 15 minutes of panic, I recalled my second grade math-classes:
(2n+1)²= 4n² + 4n + 1
because
(2n+1)²

=(2n+1) * (2n+1)
= 2n * 2n, 2n * 1, 1 * 2n, 1*1
= 4n² + 2n + 2n + 1
= 4n² + 4n + 1

pfeeuw.