Sorry for the gap, I had a rather busy March and needed to get some work done, rather than 'blogging'. I have not written any text yet (Will I need to ask for an extension!), but have been coding a few ideas. I am trying to cover the following areas/subjects with my processing programs: Simple classes (Using a simple class to show the structure of a class and discuss instantiating them, overloading methods, constructors etc), Inheritance, Composition, Abstract Classes, Interfaces and finally Polymorphism. I am planning on writing the programs and then 'writing around them' to produce the text. Because programming is not my day job (yet!) and so I have limited programming experience I hope to post the code in advance to allow any experienced professional coders to 'pick holes and criticise' so that I can improve the programs as I work on the text.

I have now read up the end of Chapter 7 and am about to start the section that covers my chunk of the book. I am almost ready to start getting some thoughts down regarding the structure and what to include in order to cover all the points that need covering. I am quite pleased to have finally got to the stage where I can do some work and see some results, rather than just reading and learning.

I am becoming very conscious that I have not achieved a whole lot in the few months we have been doing this. I got up to chapter 6 but have had to go back and reread chapter 5 as I missed the early important stuff by hurrying and reading sporadically. I will try and do little and often and then get up to my chapter where the real work begins.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year.I'm up to Chapter 5 now, but still have not written any Processing code or used the IDE at all. Will read up to and including my bit (Classes) and then start playing.

Thought it might be useful having my chunk documented somewhere on my blog so that I can keep in mind what I am going to be doing:

CHUNK 61
TITLE Classes 2
DESCRIPTION This part of the book should introduce the code behind a class; this will require teaching of the highest order. This is a repeat of the previous chunk. Classes are so dificult to understand so we have decided to repeat the teaching
OUTCOME
Be able to understand the code of a simple class programmed in no more than 30 lines of code
REFERENCE Greenberg 304
HINT Try and describe a class that implements some simple graphics. Do enough teaching on constructors to get you throuugh but do not go to town on this: there will be more teaching on constructors later. Make the arguments lists a little more complicated than the previous chunk of the book, say three arguments maximum.
PROGRAM Difficult task: try and develop a class that is a little more complicated than the one that you describe and make it do something really visual.

Have not made much progress at all so far due to pressure of work. I have read up to Ch3 and just starting Ch4. I am hoping for to get some time put by over Christmas to get some more reading done and will try and write my chunk in January when I am skint and have nothing to do with the cold evenings.

I have decided to attempt Book Fragment 61 Classes 2. I put in quite a late bid and found that many of the fragments that caught my eye had already gone. I have not even read the chapter on advanced object oreientation which relates to my fragment so do not know what is in store. Professor Ince has said it will be quite tricky but will support some good graphics. I'm glad as I would rather be challenged than bored.

I am currently on Chapter 3 of the Greenberg book so have some way to go before I start work on my fragment. I'm usually too busy to read it at work and the only peace I get at home is when Tommy and Mollie are asleep by which time I am normally knackered myself. I get a fair amount of reading done in the loo and have upped my intake of bran flakes to assist with this.

I emailed the project email to see if anyone had thought of a title for the book as yet. No one has as yet...