A lot has changed - but the memory lingers on
Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2009-03-12 13:42:39 - Graham Ellis
I got an email from a delegate I trained ten years ago - which goes to show just how long a week of training can be remembered. He wrote "I was trying to figure out how to return EOF in Java when Google showed site Well House. Well, I couldn't remember where I learned Perl but now I do! Sometime in 99 I took one of your Perl courses - which in fact did turn out to be exactly what I needed."It's good to hear from people after all these years - it helps complete the loop and make it feel all that much more worthwhile knowing that people learn not only for the short but the medium and long term too. But - my goodness - a lot of water has flowed under the bridge in ten years!
I'll share my answer ... and help fill in any other past delegates who should stumble across our pages ... it's a small world after all
In "99", we were running our own Perl courses under contract at First Alternative who in those days had a training centre (since closed) at Harwell in Oxfordshire. In 2000, we opened our own training centre in Melksham, Wiltshire - initially for our Perl and Java courses, but we rapidly added Tcl, and since then other languages too, most notably (in terms of business volume!) Python and PHP.
We've specialised in the REALLY niche stuff, so that most of our delegates travel a long way to our courses - and that means that some 80% of delegates also want overnight accommodation - so in 2006, we expanded / opened a new training centre / hotel, where we now run all of our public courses. And we're teaching Linux, web server deployment, Lua, Ruby and MySQL - also C and C++ - in addition to those subjects mentioned above. Then we found that people coming to Melksham, or to visit Bath, like to stay with us because we're a full hotel ... and people want to hire our training rooms to run their own courses ... and we're now something of a 24 x 7 business!
I may be wrong ... but some vague bell tells me that you were with Oxford University of based near there. If I have committed the ultimate sin of mixing up my Oxfords and Cambridges - oops - I expect you'll forgive me.
Did you get your Java "eof" sorted? The answer will depend on what method you're using on what type of object ;-) .... with chance being that it will be a cardinal number like -1, a false, or an exception chucked back at you. Please do let me know if you are not resolved and I'll have a proper look within 24 hours - there's no limit to how long I like to help past students. In fact - I started a blog back in 2004 and I post useful answers such as this up there ... please do have a look at http://www.wellho.net/horse - for "The Horse's Mouth". And if you fancy a weekend away in Wiltshire, do come down and stay at the hotel ... you can refer to the library of around 700 books (100 on Java, 100 on Perl) and we can catch up on old times. Oh - the hotel web site is http://www.wellhousemanor.co.uk and past delegates can stay at the weekend at a special price of 70 pounds per room per night ;-)
Anyway - let me know if you need a hand with the Java, and if you're down our way (but not looking to stay) put in for a coffee. Good to hear from you!
Illustration ... my training takes me to many places, mostly local to us here in the UK but occasionally distant. The picture shows a training course group (I don't usually take this many!) in Mexico in the summer of 2009