Tim Boudreau's Blog

NetBeans Goes to South America!

I drove the NetBeans Mobile to its destination last week, arrived in Massachusetts on Thursday; unloaded it all day Friday, and flew to Brazil on Saturday. A steady diet of vast quantities of barbecue (the death-by-meat approach to dining), tiny cups of super-sweet coffee and Guaraná soda is keeping me vertical.

We began yesterday in São José do Rio Preto, with a crowd of 102 for five hours covering an intro to Java, Open Source and NetBeans. It's fun doing an intro-to-Java talk - a nice change from what I'm usually doing, and some of the students have some programming experience but not necessarily Java. So I get to go into the history of programming, languages, computer science, how programming languages have evolved, what Objects are, why there is equals() and hashCode(). Believe it or not, it's a fun topic.

Waiting at the airport I think I hit on a useful metaphor if you want to explain what multi-threading in programming is, to someone new to it: You get off an airplane. You are one thread of execution. The folks taking your bag off the plane and loading it on the conveyer belt are another thread of execution. Ideally they get done at the same time, and you walk up and your bag is there. Sometimes no; so the threading constructs in Java allow you to handle those cases.

I like teaching through metaphor - my grandfather had my wiring up circuits when I was four years old, and he used metaphor heavily: think of the electricity in the wire as water running through a pipe - current and voltage mapping to water pressure and how much water comes out - and a four year old can understand it (with a demonstration or two at the kitchen sink if needed). It's necessarily imprecise, but it gives people a handle to grab onto. So when I'm teaching or presenting, I really just try to channel my grandfather and ask myself how he would have explained things.

As I write this, we are getting ready to land in São Paulo, to connect and fly to Brasilia. The sheer expanse of São Paulo is astounding - I'm looking at tall buildings like twigs stretching out to the horizon. Alas in my high-speed moving and unpacking chaos, I forgot to pack my good camera - so I'll either borrow one, or go luddite and try to find a good used SLR.

We'll spend the afternoon doing the NetBeans road-show there, and then it's on to Fortaleza this evening. And I hope to learn a little Portuguese this time around - with a month in Brazil there is no excuse not to. My seven years of Spanish, 19 years neglected and buried under Russian and Czech ought to help a little if I can dredge it up!

Our schedule for the trip:

• October 29: São José do Rio Preto, Brazil
• October 30: Brasilia, Brazil
• October 31: Fortaleza, Brazil
• November 1: Salvador, Brazil
• November 5: Montevideo, Uruguay
• November 7: Buenos Aires, Argentina
• November 9: Cordoba, Argentina
• November 12: Santiago, Chile
• November 14: Florianopolis, Brazil
• November 16: Natal, Brazil
• November 19: Porto Alegre, Brazil

The view from the restaurant in Congonhas airport - doesn't really show the scale of the city, but can give an idea of what the buildings look like

Comments

• Welcome to Brazil :)Fortaleza is already warming up the Tapiocas in honor of your presence :)
  Quick start in Portugese:

  Thanks - obrigado
  Excuse me - com licença
  Please - por favor
  Beer - cerveja

  :) The Brazilian crew can speak the pronunciation for you..
  

  Posted by: felipegaucho on October 30, 2007 at 04:47 AM

• You are not doing the 10 cities in 10 days tour? :-) Now that brings back some memories.
  Say hello to our many friends we made on 'Tour de Brazil' in Brasilia, Salvador and Natal. Look forward to hearing more about your trip.
  

  Posted by: huntch on October 30, 2007 at 05:34 AM

• Hello Tim.
  Tomorrow you be here, in Fortaleza, and we're glad with your presence. Bye.

  Posted by: jsilveira on October 30, 2007 at 10:37 AM

• Hi! I'm from Cordoba, Argentina and found this info today. I'd like to get some info about where will the meeting be (November 9) because i'm really looking forward to take part of it :)

  hope to see you soon guys!

  Fede

  Posted by: fedebobbio on October 30, 2007 at 11:04 AM

• Oh, I've been in Fortaleza just days ago... I'm from Bariloche, Argentina. I hope we can get you here soon! Your friend Rich Unger (and his girlfriend Patty) stayed here at home a couple of days at the beginning of their trip.

  Posted by: gustavosantucho on October 30, 2007 at 01:15 PM

• Hello Tim,
  I think you forgot Florianópolis, an island in the south of Brazil on November, 14th.
  Cheers!
  Bruno

  Posted by: brunogh on October 31, 2007 at 01:06 PM

• hi... im form Argentina too. I'd like to know a little more about the agenda for November 7(mainly when and where is the event is gonna take place).... looking forward to it.
  thanks ,
  Juan

  Posted by: jirungaray on November 05, 2007 at 10:07 AM

• Hey !!!

  Nice job and good luck in your trip to South America... If you want to come to Colombia, You are Welcome!!!

  Posted by: xphree on November 07, 2007 at 08:09 PM

• FYI, the Cordoba location is Universidad Empresarial Siglo 21, Universidad Tecnológica Nacional cede Córdoba

  Posted by: timboudreau on November 08, 2007 at 08:08 AM

• Re Central America, we are discussing something like that for next year...stay tuned...

  Posted by: timboudreau on November 08, 2007 at 08:09 AM

• BTW, apropos of nothing and on behalf of mac users everywhere: 13949712720901ForOSX

  Posted by: timboudreau on November 09, 2007 at 04:29 PM

• I'm so grateful for all that you've done. Thanks again for that nice essay and I would be most grateful if you would send me the latter ones....

  
  mirc
  mırc
  mirç
  mırç
  mirc indir
  chat yap
  islami sohbet
  dini sohbet
  kelebek
  kelebek sohbet
  kelebek mirc
  kameralı mirc
  kameralı sohbet
  chat yap
  çet
  çet odaları
  sohbet kanalları
  sohbet odaları
  yarışma
  sevgili
  arkadaş
  arkadaş ara
  arkadaşlık

  Posted by: mhsin on June 20, 2008 at 09:50 AM

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.