Paul Grenyer

by Peter F. Hamilton ISBN-13: 978-1447279662 I haven’t posted a book review to my blog for a very long time. This is because I haven’t finished a book for a very long time!  Last night I finished Peter F. Hamilton’s Pandora’s Star, the first of the Commonwealth Saga. At 1151 pages it took me just over a year to read on my second attempt. I think the first attempt started a year earlier than that. I was struggling with it, but it was worth it. Pandora’s star is a space opera of reasonably wide scope. I like books that force me to keep up to follow the interactions of the characters, often in separate plot lines that come together at the end. There’s plenty of that in Pandora’s Star. Some of the sub-plot lines used to build the characters felt a bit much and there are places where it’s a little ploddy and others, such as the flight of the Second Chance where more detail would have been good. I also didn’t get on with Ozzy or his storyline at all. Overall it was a good read...

What: Two-Day Python Workshop for People New to Programming When: Thursday, October 8, 2015, 9:00am to 4:45am & Thursday, October 9, 2015, 9:00am to 4:45am Where: The King's Centre, King Street Price: £65 Sign-up: http://www.meetup.com/Norfolk-Developers-NorDev/events/224262366/ This hands-on workshop is to enable people who are not programmers to get into the world of programming. These two days are just an initial foray, to give people the basic ideas and a taste of what it is like. The course will introduce programming using Python to people who have little or no idea what programming is. This will be a version for adults of the sort of new computing material that will be being taught to primary and secondary school students starting next year.  The goal is to make sure people begin to understand the theory and practice of programming and computer science, but coming to it from a very practical viewpoint: theory emerges from practice. There will be four ...

What: Apprenticeships are good for people and good for business & Born digital When: Thursday, October 22, 2015, 5:30pm to 7:30pm Where: 3aaa, 25-27 Surrey St, Norwich, Norfolk NR1 3NX RSVP: http://www.meetup.com/East-of-England-Apprentices/events/224328465/ Apprenticeships are good for people and good for business  Huw Sayer Huw Sayer will explain why apprenticeships benefit both employers and employees. His view is that investing in developing people is not just a social good but also an economic necessity. He will look at the value of social brands to businesses – and personal brands to individuals. Huw Sayer ( @HuwSayer ) Huw’s passion is creating engaging conversations that empower people, build brands and inspire change. He specialises in helping clients spark such conversations with their employees, buyers and suppliers. This involves researching, writing and editing content for everything from annual reports to social media. He has over 25-years ...

Scala Full Day Workshop When: Wednesday, 2nd September 2015, 10:00am to 4:45pm Where: The King's Centre, King Street, Norwich, NR1 1PH Price: £25 RSVP: http://www.meetup.com/Norfolk-Developers-NorDev/events/222659057/ This hands-on workshop is aimed at people who currently program in languages other than Scala, who wish to gain an appreciation of Scala. The day comprises a short introductory session and then a sequence of problem sessions: each session will have a quick introduction to set the scene and give direction, a period of pair-working creating a solution to a problem, rounded off by a whole group period ("mob programming") creating a group answer to the problem. The sequence of problems starts from the very simple and leads through various features of Scala to end with some definitely not so simple things. Scala is a JVM-based programming language, but there is no need to have knowledge of Java to attend this workshop. It will though be necessary ...