From: martinher@urvax.urich.edu
Newsgroups: comp.object
Subject: Re: Summary on OO training
Date: 1 Jan 93 22:37:50 GMT
Reply-To: martinher@urvax.urich.edu
Organization: University of Richmond

I just spent a week each with an instructor from the GE Advanced
Concepts Center and Desmond D'Souza of Icon Computing, Inc.  They
both teach OMT and the courses are excellent.  I have no other
connection with either organization except for the fact that I
recommended that our organization adopt OMT (Rumbaugh, et al)
as our analysis and design methodology.

I hesitate to tell you how good Desmond really is, as I hope to
learn much more from him in the future and if everyone else
finds out how wonderful he is then he will become rich and
famous and he may not have time for me.  But, because he deserves
credit for his skill and the contribution that he may to our
organization I will take that chance.

Desmond D'Souza is the founder of Icon Computing, Inc. of Austin,
TX.  They specialize in object-oriented technology and education.
He writes a regular article for JOOP which I find invaluable and
was one of the main reasons that I sugsted bringing him in to
teach our staff.  We first met here on the Net and then conversed
by Email and phone last month.  This week (Dec 28-31) Desmond
himself taught us Object-Oriented Design Idioms and Architectures.
His design concepts are based upon the analysis, modeling, and
design discussed in "Object-Oriented Modeling and Design" by James
Rumbaugh, et al. (OMT).  He has suplemented this with the best
work of Booch and other respected experts in OO Design, and his
own outstanding contributions to our field.  This he retains 
the excellent benefits of OMT and almost completely eliminates
any of the correct criticisms of OMT's weak integration of the
three models (Object, Functional, and Dynamic) and the weakness
of the OMT design treatment.  He both provides the missing 
design methods and explains how to explicitly relate and strengthen
the three models by reference to each other.  This is no small
accomplishment and I applaud this contribution.
 
He did all this while maintaining the interest of a diverse
audience with widely disparate skills.  He was at all times clear,
concise, entertaining, and informative.  He has a rich sense of
humor and does not take himself too seriously.  We had everyone
from supervisors with little OO experience and mainframe Cobol
wizards with no OO or object language experience to workstation
C++ technology trailblazers in the classroom this week.  

(I myself am not ready to claim OO master status but within our 
organization I am the technology leader on MACs, PC, OO Design 
& Analysis, and I teach C++ internally.)

He was consistently able to challenge me and the other leaders
as he offered us new insights and much valuable information.  At
the same time he kept the interest and opened up the possibilities
of objects to our more traditional staff.  ALL of their COMMENTS were 
POSITIVE, both in front of Desmond and those I heard or overheard
in private.

Desmond claims that he has several more instructors of his caliber.
If this is accurate then he has a very strong organization which
should be considered by anyone looking for education and mentoring
in OO concepts.
 
There, I have gone and done it.  Told the truth and maybe cost
myself something valuable in the long run.  But, my better nature
insists that helping people to find Desmond D'Souza and Icon
can only benefit all of us.  Thanks Desmond.

And please do not take anything I said here as a criticism of OMT
in a generaly sense.  OMT is the best framework that I have yet
found for object oriented life cycles, the fact that it is not
perfect is completely expected.  The fact that it can be easily
improved - not by contradiction but by expansion - is to OMT's
credit and the credit of Jim Rumbaugh and his associates.

Herb Martin   "I refuse to misunderstand, simply because I did not ask."
martinher@urvax.urich.edu
(804) 274-4325
Newsgroups: comp.object