Eduard Schildner's blog

How I googled the Fly off

Let me share this software solution to a real world problem. A fly in my room was bothering me for quite a while. I waited patiently and didn't react. My big mighty hit was about to come.

Suddenly the fly landed on my second monitor - too far to be reached from the comfort of my chair. I tried to scare the creature by moving a mouse pointer below it. No reaction. It was loughing at me from a Software Engineering pdf file. That little beggar. That's it!

With a few quick trained moves I typed google dot com. Four keywords poped up on the screen almost instantly: "big ugly spider video". Here you are! Haven't heard about the fly since.

Goal festival

Once upon a time there has been a tiny village of Hoffenheim. In that village they had a football club. One day a wealthy owner invested in the club and they started winning. After 5 straight promotions the village became too small to host football matches of such importance that all country watched them on sky sport. So they built a stadium in the neighbouring town and moved.

Wikipedia: "The stadium has a capacity of 30,164 people, situated in a town with a population of 35,000." Can you imagine? I couldn't. So I went to see it.

After 10 matches in this season TSG Hoffenheim 1899 is 3rd in the Bundesliga table, higher than any of the three German clubs participating in the Champions League this season. And they really did live happily ever after.

I've got the job!

Unfortunatelly, this is not the Work Placement I've been talking about a week ago. Lesson learned. But I am glad nevertheless. I've just got my first real contract for some web development activity.

When my client contacted me first, I was nearly panicking. I knew I could deliver what he wanted quite easily, the technical skillset is there. But what if he asks about price? I had no clue about what is reasonable to ask for in the real world and I didn't want to sell myself short. What shall I do?

I was quick as hell. In an hour I had two opinions from people active in the industry. But most helpful advice came from my Web Development Fundamentals lecturer at CIT, Colin Manning. Thank you, Colin.

When I was talking to the client again it sounded quite professional when I came to things like the delivery date or the rate per hour for any additional work after the delivery (which really wouldn't pop up in my mind, hadn't I asked for advice).

I trained myself not to feel awkward asking for quite reasonable amount and when the client stated he would actually like to have something double that demanding than discussed previously, I scaled up the prize accordingly. He said yes and then I hung up and then I said: "yeeaehaa!"

Trip home

I went home for the weekend. I mean home home, the Czech republic home! 800km to get there on Thursday and 780km to get back on Monday. A shortcut found:) I enjoy driving a lot. It was quite a ride, one of my fastest but also a safe one, yes mum!

The interesting part on driving in Germany is that you don't need to exceed speed limits to experience some speed. There are no speed limits! At least on motorways - off the peak hours when the limit is the traffic. The absence of speed limit results in somewhat ridiculous situations that despite driving 180km/h you have to stay in the middle lane and you are constantly being overtaken by BMWs and Porsches that are 100km/h faster than you.

Driving like that one musn't be ashamed to take a power nap when neeeeaaaaeded. So I'm going to bed noooaoaaw.

It was lovely to see everybody back home.

The bad interview

A Work Placement in Semester 6 is mandatory part of the Software Development course at CIT. It should be a paid job and a priceless experience. I see it as the single most important part of the whole undergraduate program.

Why exactly I wasn't perfectly prepared for the job interview then, I don't know. It is my aspiration to become a good programmer so why didn't I program during the summer break? It's hard to say that I had to charge my batteries and even harder to admit that I didn't see java for 4 months when on the phone with guys looking for a java developer and asking technical questions.

Very ironically, my first lecture on GUI or Java this semester took place 6 hours after the inteview was over. During his presentation the teacher explained 5 out of 5 questions I didn't know the right answer to during my interview. And knowing just the other half of the basics proved to be too little.

I don't want to pitty myself so what is here to be learned? I list all the Q&A's that no 3rd year student after 2 semesters of java wants to be reminded of in a revision lecture that takes place 6 hours too late.

0. May it get very technical even if it's your 1st contact with the company?
A: yep. defo

1. What is the difference between assigning and initiating?
A: Initiating is reservation of space before an object or a primitive type is used. Values can only be assigned afterwards.

2. What is the difference between final and finally?
A: Final is used for making a class no-subclassable, and making a member variable as a constant which cannot be modified. Finally is usually used to release all the resources utilized inside the try block.

3. Can you explain the difference between overloading and overriding?
A: Overloading - Two functions having same name and return type, but with different type and/or number of arguments. Overriding - When a function of base class is re-defined in the derived class.

4. What layout managers do you know?
A: Flow Layout, Grid Layout, Border Layout, Box Layout.

5. What is the SWT?
A: Stands for Standard Widget Toolkit. A GUI library alternative to AWT and to SWING. SWT pixelizes - "draws pictures" on the screen. Inefficient with resources.

6. What is an abstract class and what is an interface?
A: Abstract class is a class that cannot be instantiated. It can define both, the methods and the attributes. Multiple inheritance from abstract classes is not possible. Imagine abstract class as a father: you can only inherit hair colour, eye colour etc. from one and only one father. Interface can't be instantiated either. It is a set of methods that can be called on an object, but does not provide concrete implementations. It is like with neighbours. One can repair cars, another can bake, third one can kick the ball. As a child, you can learn from them all and still do it in your own style. But you don't inherit their attributes like hair colour etc.

7. What is the difference between private, protected, and public?
A: These keywords are for allowing privileges to components such as java methods and variables. Public: accessible to all classes. Private: accessible only to the class to which they belong. Protected: accessible to the class to which they belong and any subclasses.

8. Can you explain polymorphism?
A: Polymorphism enables one entity to be used as as general category for different types of actions. The specific action is determined by the exact nature of the situation. The concept of polymorphism can be explained as "one interface, multiple methods".

9. What SWING components do you know?
A: Every single one of them. (from here)

10. What does the keyword 'static' mean in java?
The static keyword denotes that a member variable, or a method, can be accessed without requiring an instantiation of the class to which it belongs. It means that you can call a method, even if you've never created the object to which it belongs. That's why main() can be called.

Why Darmstadt?

I simply couldn't resist the temptation to find out more about the secret of Darmstadt's Computer Science Department success. When two thousand German IT companies were asked in 2008 whether they would prefer a candidate for a job from a specific college, half (!!!) of them named Hochschule Darmstadt.

Also, having a passion for languages and for computers, I am interested in the fields of Computer Science where these two are combined. Things like Computational Linguistic, Speech Recognition, and Automatic Translation just fascinate me. Here I can take a class in Natural Language Systems which deals with some of the above mentioned areas.

I want to see for myself if this is something I would like to spend my working life on. I dream of a time when people will lough about the generation which actually had to type keywords into a search field via a device called keyboard in order to get some answers. And I have a feeling that these little people are beginning to form their first questions right now.

Stupid bureaucracy!

First thing I needed was to get registered at the college in order to sign up for my classes. To get registered, one needs to pay 181 EUR registration fee and to present a proof that one has a valid health insurance for the duration of the stay in Germany.

I have a guaranteed access to health care in Germany as an owner of European Health Insurance Card. First I thought I would just present the card to the admission people and off I'd go. Well, they insisted on having a specific confirmation from a German health insurance company of their choice! What a rip off!

I was forced to sign up for a contract with the institute they sent me to. It's 65 EUR a month, so I am actually double insured for extra 325 EUR. As I only went for the basic contract, it still doesn't mean I would get a medical care for free. If I get sick and need to see a doctor, I can choose which card to show him. Will it be the EHIC which I got for free or will it be the new German one? Same thing. And of course, after he examines me, I will pay.

Welcome to Germany

Having succesfully crossed the Celtic Sea with Irish Ferries (big worries beforehand), I enjoyed a drive across France. Well, except the fact that they stop you every 3 miles on a motorway to pay toll.

From Normandy, through Paris (literally as I somehow took the wrong turn and then found myself in the city centre with the Eiffel Tower lightning there and drivers behaving like crazy) I drove until I safely arrived in Champagne region. So I slept in Champagne just for the craic.

I was about to meet my friend Hans in Darmstadt on Day 1 to collect my keys. I thought we'd go for a drink, have a chat and maybe also eat something when he says: The weather is good and what did I think of going for a "sky-walk" (spazierenfliegen).

I was shown the Frankfurt skyline from above as well as numerous castles and monuments around the river Rhine and we also had a look where I was to go the next day in Darmstadt. See the building with the green roof? That's where. A fantastic experience.