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?