Software and People

In his blog, Michael Ernest told some haiku, which reminded me...

Two weeks ago, as part of the PGCE (Postgraduate Certificate of Education) course I'm studying, some of the group presented their "microteach" sessions. In this context, a "microteach" is a short teaching session (15-20 minutes) on a subject of your choice. I'd already presented mine a few weeks before - an introduction to buying and selling on eBay, in the vague hope I might get a few sign-up referrals, but no luck there :(

Anyway, as well as two people who independently decided to teach us about British Sign Language, one decided to do a 15 minute lesson on Haiku. After an introduction to the form, some history and some examples, we got to have a go ourselves.

At last, a class where staring out the window and daydreaming is not just allowed - it's a vital part of the lesson :D

During this session I scribbled the following:

    striding into college
    snowy pathways slip and crunch
    warm shoulders, cold ears
    

    the snow clouds have gone
    a lonely pigeon wingbeats
    against the sharp wind
    

    silent microteach
    upturned faces stare intent
    at Odette's fingers
    

But my favourite is still one I produced a few months ago in response to a thread at JavaRanch.com:

    public class Poem {
    public String toString() { return
    "A Java Haiku" ; } }
    

And before you ask. Yes, it does compile and work. And yes, I did write a unit test:

    void test() { assertTrue(
    "A Java Haiku".equals(
    new Poem().toString() ) ; } }

Programming in Haiku - how geeky is that?

Euxx writes I just complete over thousand lines of new code. Now it is probably ready for testing

Wow. I can't imagine running 10 or 100 lines of fresh code without having tested any of it, let alone 1000. I'd also hate to think how it is designed if there really is no way to test individual bits of this 1000 line monster.