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Showing posts from September, 2008

Summer's End Festival 2008

On Friday I went to the Summer's End festival in Lydney. It's a 500 mile round trip from Norwich as was well worth every mile, even though the traffic on the way over was dreadful. Lydney is a nice quiet little place, except for the boy racers, but then every small town has those. The night got off to a good start with a reasonable curry, but then we were left waiting outside the venue for nearly an hour. We got in at 8pm and the organisers were still setting up. At least various members of both bands were wandering around in the crowd and Damian Wilson even came and said hello. Seasons End came on nearly an hour later than originally advertised. I've seen them live twice before and they're always brilliant. It's just a shame it's not reflected on their debut album. They were absolutely incredible on this occasion, especially given the dreadful PA. Their new concept album is out before the end of the year and they played at least two new tracks from it. I'

Slipknot Shouldn't Be This Good

I always thought I was genetically programmed not to like Slipknot. I thought they were for kids, all gimmick and, believe it or not, too noisy. I saw them in Birmingham coheadlining with Slayer (I went to see slayer) a few years ago. As preparation I bought Vol.3: The Subliminal Verses and really got into it, especially Duality, but it was pretty much a passing phase, although they were very good with Slayer and I still enjoy listening to the album. A few weeks ago their third album, All Hope Is Gone, came out. It's incredible. A real step forward in maturity and musicianship (yes, I am talking about Slipknot). Not only that, but I really like the songs. Who'd have thought they'd use acoustic guitars and harmonies. It's just shame their London shows have sold out already...

ACCU Conference 2009 Proposal (2)

Title: MVC in practice - A Beginners Guide to Model View Controller Type: Case study Duration: 45 min Speaker: Paul Grenyer Speaker biography: Paul has been programming in one form or another for over 20 years. After several years using C++ and a brief period using C#, Paul has now ended up somewhere he hoped he'd never be, programming in Java, and finding he really quite likes it. After time in industries such as marking machinery, direct mail, mobile phones, investment banking and Internet TV, Paul is currently working for an exciting new insurance industry based startup in Norwich. He has been an ACCU member since 2001, a regular publications contributor (including the new Desert Island Books column), creator of the mentored developers and a committee member for most of that time. When he's not programming or getting used to married life and being a step parent, Paul thoroughly enjoys science fiction, heavy metal and cycling. In this session I am going to describe a real pro

Model View Controller

In Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture [PEAA] Martin Fowler tells us that the Model View Controller (MVC) splits user interface interaction into three distinct roles: Model – The model holds and manipulates domain data (sometimes called business logic or the back end). View – A view renders some or all of the data contained within the model. Controller – The controller takes input from the user and uses it to update the model and to determine when to redraw the view(s). MVC is all about separating concerns. The model and views separate the data from the views and the controller and the view separate user input from the views. Another version of the MVC pattern employs the controller as a mediator between the views and model. The controller still takes user input, but now it passes it on to model. It also passes commands from the view to the model and takes events from the model and passes them on to the view. This version provides greater separation as the model and view no

ACCU Conference 2009 Proposal (1)

Title: Extending Liquid Office: A Quick Guide to Java Mocking, JavaScript, AXIS, SOAP and Testing Type: Case study Duration: 90 min Speaker: Paul Grenyer Speaker biography: Paul has been programming in one form or another for over 20 years. After several years using C++ and a brief period using C#, Paul has now ended up somewhere he hoped he'd never be, programming in Java, and finding he really quite likes it. After time in industries such as marking machinery, direct mail, mobile phones, investment banking and Internet TV, Paul is currently working for an exciting new insurance industry based startup in Norwich. He has been an ACCU member since 2001, a regular publications contributor (including the new Desert Island Books column), creator of the mentored developers and a committee member for most of that time. When he's not programming or getting used to married life and being a step parent, Paul thoroughly enjoys science fiction, heavy metal and cycling. Liquid Office is a