anyone...

a) ...been on any of Sun's training courses in Regis House, and if so,
what are the facilities like &
b) ...know the best way to get through the warren that is
Bank/Monument station from the Bank Circle Line to the bit of Monument
that exits nearest King William Street?

And yes, I know this is off-topic, but statistically, I reckon we'd be
better off with OT standing for "On Topic".

 

Ooh, J2EE course?

 

Get on the same tube as Kiran, and follow him as he disembarks, then ask
"Which exit do I need?"

This worked for me, but predicting the exact train and carriage was more
by luck than judgement, as we got on at different stops.

 

unfortunately, you need to be a "Certified Java Programmer" before
they'll let you on any of the J2EE courses, so even though I know it
already, I need to go on the "Java Programming Language" course first,
then take the certification exam, and then hopefully go on the
"Developing J2EE Compliant Applications" course in May.

 

No idea about the facilities as I am not a computer programmer. As for the
tube your best bet would be to get off at Cannon Street, cross over the road
then walk up Walbrook. Have a look at a map and you'll see what I mean.

 

that'd mean being seen in public with Kiran, though.

ah - probably for the best.

 

*boggle*

I did my courses at Learning Tree - they'll take *anybody* - and you can
usually convince whoever holds the training budget that, since you need to
do 3 or 4 courses, they might as well shell out on a 10-course passport for
you ...

Anyway, when you eventually get on to doing Entity Beans, ask the instructor
why, when relational databases have benefitted from 20 years of refinement
and optimisation, we should access persistent data through some ludicrously
complex, intricate and slow mechanism, instead of just "doing some fucking
SQL" ... or "using Hibernate"

 

err, yes, but Cannon Street is somewhat less trivial for me to get to
than Bank.

 

I know. I've tried the "look, I can fucking write and compile Java
classes, I understand OO analysis and design, and I've no fucking
interest in fucking Swing, OK?" approach, but apparently this is the
way Sun do things.

Yeah, I've used them, but unfortunately my current employer appear to
have a "relationship" with Sun.

You'd think. However, even one of Sun's courses costs more than my
training allowance. However, there's a great deal of apathy amongst
the existing "Java Gurus" as in they think they already know
everything, and are "too busy" to go on courses, so I get to use about
4 other people's budget this year too as part of my "bonus package"
(sic.)

well, I pretty much already know the answer to that question - "Java
sucks". Still, it's all good stuff for the CV.

 

But you're there for life now shirly

 

oh look, just found:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/clive.billson/tubemaps/ltbank.gif
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/clive.billson/tubemaps/ltmonu.jpg

which helps somewhat.

 

Sure. Actually the language is fine, especially with 1.5 on the horizon,
which basically brings things up to the level of c#. It's just the Java
Community Process that cocks things up - consensus is all very well, but it
encourages this wooly "let's write a spec and let someone else bother with
something so tedious as an actual implementation" approach - which is how
you get abortions like entity beans.

We've just put together a broadly-J2EE framework using open source stuff,
done by people who clearly had an actual project to deliver for
(OpenSymphony, JBoss, Apache), and it rocks.

Would have been easier in VB, though

 

I'd very much doubt it. If I get formal Java qualifications on my CV,
and just a little bit more business knowledge of the sector in which I
now work, I could be working for some other bunch of investment
bankers for about 25% more money.

 

heh, but VB's for bodgers - everyone knows that

<fx: Waves to AntonyE>

 

Walk overground.

 

from Bank? Yes, I was coming to that conclusion, despite what it looks
like on the A-Z.

 

Aye. It seemed quicker every time I've done it. Of course, it
depends on which end of the train you are on....

 

well, I get on the Central Line at Liverpool street, so I can get on
either end with not much effort either way. I guess I'll just have to
experiment on the first day.

 

Heretic. You'll be lynched.

 

Why not go for an MCSE just to round off the CV?