Text Book
As mentioned earlier, a subject I took turned out to be a real dud, and the Lecturer a bit of an idiot, prompting me to drop the subject.
Since then, the $120 hardcover book (only 200 pages, and very small ones at that), written by the lecturer has been sitting on my shelf mocking me. I was going to sell it to a classmate, but the best offer I got was $50 :-S. On Meryl’s advice I gave the refund option a try – I didn’t expect much as it was a month after I bought it, but sure enough they took it back (with proof that I had droped the subject), and even refunded cash!
No $3 royalty from me! HAH!
Will.
Java Joke
Two ints and a Float are in a bar. They spot an attractive Double on her own. The first int walks up to her. “Hey, baby”, he says, “my VM or yours”. She slaps him and he walks back dejected. The second int walks over. “Hey, cute-stuff, can I cook your Beans for breakfast”. After a quick slapping, he too walks back. The Float then ambles over casually. “Were those two primitive types bothering you?”, he remarks. “Yes. I’m so glad you’re hereâ€?, she says. “They just had no Class!”
ref: source.
What are we doing?
I dropped my first uni subject today — Agent Orientated Programming.
Agent Orientated Programming is an interesting field, we use a Java based language, and the subject has no final exam — sounds good right? Well no, turned out to be as vague and ambiguous as I have ever seen (both the lecturer, presented material and task descriptions). Add to this a completaly disfunctioning group, 50% of our marks coming from a class assignment (yes – class, everyone), and a lecturer who knows exactly what output he wants to see, and hopes we will magically come up with his exact design (and we we don’t, just use his anyway). Even worse, I have no idea how 60% of the marks are going to be allocated (my current line of thinking is that they are just plucked out of the air)
Well kicking myself for not seeing it four weeks earlier (before I bought the $123.95 text book — and a small, 200 page one at that), I am bailing.
What a train wreck. I’m just glad I won’t be on it when it crashes…
Rather amusing to see this newsgroup post today after officially dropping which exactly mirrors my thoughts:
Group: rmit.cs.AgentOrientedProgrammingAndDesign
Subject: What are we doing?
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2005 10:34:34 +1000
From: Paul
News Groups:
What exactly are we meant to be doing - to do protocols we
need Scenarios, to do scenarios we need the entire class.
We only have the entire class on thursdays. Given we are
doing a whole Class Assignment - it might have been a better
idea to say "Group A work on Scenario(s) X,Y." (for all
groups). That way each group could not be penalized for the
slackness of other groups. Because the current process of
"Everyone muddle about" isn't working.
We can email around the .pd file. But then if we are
working on scenarios, how are we suppose to work on
protocols?
Do we just guess the protocols? And wait for the moment
(which will come anyway) that Michael says "well they were
okay, but lets just use mine" and we get to throw another
weeks work away.
Any other suggestions?
And another…
Group: rmit.cs.AgentOrientedProgrammingAndDesign
Subject: Re: What are we doing?
Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2005 14:22:32 +1000
From: Matt
News Groups:
At least this time it is clear that we are meant to be
developing Interaction Diagrams and Interaction Protocols.
Last week our instructions were to "flesh the scenarios out
a little", which we did, only to be criticised for not
listing Roles, Variations etc. etc. in our design as well.
Would have been happy to do the work if we were told "This
is what you are expected to do" and "you should do it in a
format similar to XYZ", but it is a bit hard to determine
exactly what "flesh it out a little" actually means.
On a side note - we still haven't been told how, if at all,
the work we do in these sessions contributes to our overall
assessment. Is it part of our "participation" marks - so we
will get the marks as long as we are attempting to do the
work - or are our presentations individually assessed each
week and contribute to some other section of our marks?
Matt
I have thus far resisted the urge to add my 2c, especially now that I am no longer affected, but I didn’t hold back when giving feedback on the first assignment stating quite truthfully that it was the most ambiguous I had ever seen.
Will.
PS. Rhys, I passed on your excellent vodka advise to my remaining team mates.
