codesmell.org

…isn’t that funny in most cases. Here is one where it is: I had the opportunity to take part in a
JWeekend Wicket course. The course was held by Al Maw and Cemal Bayramoglu. It was a two day (not surprising) course: Sat & Sun, 9 to 18h in London.

Wicket is quite interesting to me, as i did some prototyping with it, and we plan to use it in a very largescale project in the near future. For that reason, one of my primary concerns was scalability. With that in mind i doubted, if a course called ‘getting started’ was exactly what i needed.
Luckily, i decided to go anyway.

The Schedule was very tight, the pace was high and there was a good load of things to learn on the first day. I’ve had only a glimpse of how things are done using Wicket, so a well structured introduction of fundamental concepts as well as components in just the right level of detail was exactly what i needed.
The day is divided into modules. Every module is followed by a hands-on session which is unique. Unlike other courses where you basically just transfer the material into a stupid usecase, these sessions are designed to drive you into trouble in order to really get the gotchas! Seems frustrating at first, but really makes you get the concepts instead of just repeating whats on the slides. During these ‘labs’, i was constantly looked after by Al and Cemal and they provided me with invaluable correction and explaination where needed.

The level of detail is again to be emphasized. Of course you cannot discuss any ajax component’s method within a day. Nevertheless Al managed to give a very good overview of what is there, and the labs drill down into the use of one representational component, that demonstrates the concepts.

The second day went on, just the same. We coded some ajax and hibernate usecases and did the advanced topics i came for: Scalability, i18n etc.
You cannot overestimate the value of a really insightful speaker. Here the course again differs from the usual ‘here-is-a-load-of-material-and-i-will-read-it-to-you’-type of course you get anywhere else. The inner workings of Wicket as well as the hint of where to look for a special tuning strategy is what you could well expect from Al.

Even if my trip (for schedule and flight-traffic reasons) was not that comfortable, taking this course was a great experience. Al and Cemal are very nice people, the material is great and what you get is definately worth the bucks & time.
If you start using Wicket for real, this course is a real timesaver.