I’m waiting for the live webcast from ZDNet to start. It’s 2am in the morning at the moment. Check out the webcast presentation window I’m staring at right now:

What is ERP? ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning. Opss..My class is starting right now. I’ll elaborate what I’ve learned when I finish this class. Got to concentrate on my class now. Bye..

Because of my previously active participation in doing networking around seminars and events, my e-mail fell into the mailing list of iTrain. I must say that iTrain provides a good number of IT training, not that I am promoting their courses but I see that their prices are considered reasonable and I do wish to enroll for one of their classes one day. On the 23rd of April, I got an email offering The Art of Software Development Workshop.

It’s only RM50 so it didn’t take me long to sign up on their online web form. 4 days later, my seat was confirmed. I recently updated my about page so you’ll probably know that I have no formal education about programming or software development. Still, web programming is still part of software development, right?

After a month of waiting, last Saturday I went to Stamford College PJ located just nearby my former office where I used to work. BTW, I paid the RM50 fees from my own pocket just to attend this workshop. I’m thinking of making a claim from my company but I forgot to ask for the receipt. Oh well, I think the knowledge of The Art of Software Development is far more valuable than RM50. So, who was the instructor for the workshop, head over here and read all the details about the program. Basically it’s a 6 days training program but this RM50 is just some sort of preview to get the feel and some general idea of The Art of Software Development.

Dr. Chai, the instructor is kind enough to share with me and the rest of the attendees his knowledge and experiences. There were only 10 people who turn up. It was kind of scary if the other people know what my background is yet I’ve seen stranger career change that other people has done. Most of what Dr. Chai was telling during the workshop was alien to me but then, I was not alone. I guess only 2 person know or at least heard of Unified Modeling Language (UML).

I would have never known that software development is a very serious thing if I haven’t attend this workshop. Mission critical software such as the heart pacemaker or software that is used on Air Traffic Controller, one tiny code error could make a different between life and death. Dr Chai also talked about documentation control, how to design those geeky documents and why it is important to have hundreds of pages requirement when making proposals to clients. Awesome stuff!

We then learned about some tools used for designing those programming codes rather than blindly leaving it to the programmers. One of the software is called StarUML. I recently installed it on my computer but I have no clue how to use it. I guess Microsoft Visio is a lot easier to use but Visio lacks the functionality that UML has. Anyway, here’s an ugly diagram taken from a sample from the StarUML example:

If you are wondering why the diagram is so ugly, there is no need for the diagram to be beautiful. For programmers or developers, it’s just a waste of time. Unless if the diagram needs to impress the clients, then it is worth to have a nice one. Another software that was introduced to us was WinCVS. It’s basically a version control software that tracks changes done for all the files for your software project. I haven’t really test that software yet but it sure is something that is quite important even for a web developer like myself.

We were supposed to design a bluetooth system using the tools that were given to us but after a couple hours discovering something out from my world, my head experienced a condition called ‘information overload’. After the workshop finished, there is one thing that I’ve learned, if you really want to excel in becoming a developer, have the word architect at the back of whatever position you are holding for example, my role would be a Web Development Architect. Being an architect is the highest peak achievement one would ever achieve. Hhmm…sounds really ambitious of me..haha..

By the way, I met a Securities Commissions IT Manager during the workshop. She’s looking for a .NET programmer for a few positions available in her department I guess. If any of my readers happen to know someone or you yourself might be interested, send me a shout and I’ll refer you to her. After jumping into this IT career, I realized that there are so many job opportunities in the IT industry yet so few people can really fulfill the vacant position. Now I wish I had a Degree in IT.. :-(

If you need more information about The Art of Software Development Training Program: Click Here.

For more information about the RM50.NET workshop: Click Here.

Interested links I found:

• Develop like an architect, not like a cowboy by ZeMMs. (I wish I had read your post ZeMMs before I went to the workshop..hehe)
• Developers are from Mars, Programmers are from Venus by Hacknot.

If you spend a fair amount of time in front of your PC at work or home, most of the time you are not aware of you bad habit. If you don’t know what your bad habit is, maybe it is time to take an ergonomic course (click on the image to open up a new browser window and start the course):

A few weeks ago, a colleague of mine went to see a doctor because he had this slight numbness on his hand. It was told that he might have carpal tunnel syndrome as he used to sit in front of his PC most his waking time and holds the mouse all the time. Since then, he takes regular break in between jobs.

I’m too also guilty of having a lot of bad posture habits in front of the PC and I’m working on to practice good ergonomics as I spend a lot of time in front of the PC too.

But what about people who are using laptops? I used to work with a laptop and I’m thinking of buying one soon (I had to give the laptop back to company when I changed job). The angles might be different but I guess you will know how figure out yourself though.