Caffeine at Bar Italia

Patrick The 'He Who Knows' Challenge, UK Life

Coffee at Bar ItaliaAfter catching up with people from work for Dim Sum today (think of Yum Cha for all you Aussies), I was going to head to Bar Italia to have a coffee. Everyone seemed to be in the mood for a bit of a coffee break so we all headed there together. Located in the heart of Soho, Bar Italia attracts all sorts of people for its food, drink and buzzing atmosphere. It is located just opposite Ronnie Scott’s (the most well known Jazz club in London apparently), and has plenty of tables and chairs lining the pavement.

While Monmouth has been the most popular coffee for those in the office (and I’m yet to have a bad one from there), Bar Italia’s coffee is actually quite comparable and was well prepared. Their hot chocolate the same standard as Amato’s (it’s powdered stuff) but, I was told by one of people who had it, that it was pretty decent. It seems like a place where people go to people watch, as many of them sit on one side of the table, simply facing the street instead of each other.

The street Bar Italia is located on is not as busy as other streets in Soho, but still has its fair share of people walking around and seeing the sights. It is right next to the bar/restaurant Little Italy (which is currently closed – sorry He Who Knows but I won’t be able to do a review for now). The food offerings, looking at the small menu, appeared fairly good but seeing as we just ate lunch, I was in no big rush to try anything. It’s a great little café, located on a great street and manages to serve really good coffee.

Details:Bar Italia
Found on: 22 Frith Street, Soho, W1D 4RF
Contactable on: 020 7437 4520
Highlights: Great coffee and is great for those that are into a slightly buzzing atmosphere and potential for lots of people watching,
Room for improvement:I’m not too sure it would be too pleasant sitting outside on the pavement during bad weather, and it’s unfortunately a little small inside.
The Kua Rating: 7 out of 10

Learning a new Language

Patrick Work Related

All the projects I have ever worked on have never been technically difficult (in fact I think that most of them in the world are not). The biggest challenge I find is learning the language that all the people who work daily on the project speak in. To put this in context, after rolling onto my newest project, my biggest problem has been trying to understand what it is exactly that everyone speaks of because, to me, it almost seems like a completely different language. There are certain patterns that I am trying to use to come up to speed quicker. I am sure that there are established learning patterns, but I thought it might be useful to share some of the ones that I use.

Decode the Acronyms – Most languages have an abbreviation for extremely repetitive terms that are important to people in the domain. Decoding acronyms helps with the next pattern of Defining the Vocabulary.

Define the Vocabulary – Think of the ubiquitous language from Eric Evans’ Domain Driven Design and simply put, is used to translate special terms people involved with the domain into something a person who does not know anything about the domain can relate to. Fortunately for me, the Vocabulary on my current assignment has been documented pretty well. I find that repeating them in daily conversations with people who know about the domain (and can correct me) is a useful technique for truly understanding what they mean.

Adopt the Grammar – Common words are especially dangerous on a new project because they are things you assume mean one thing but when put together in a special way or in a different context, can mean something totally different. Adopting the grammar is a lot more readily accomplished once you have learned the vocabulary.

Discover the History – New languages emerge because once they are understood, they can be a more effective communications mechanism for operating in the same context. Discovering the history is about finding out where the vocabulary and terms come from, and why they are used in the way that they are. These factors can come from many sources including technical, political, environment or just conventional.

Out to Oxford

Patrick London To Do, UK Life

OxfordOn Saturday I took a trip up to Oxford to visit my good friend Kath from back home. I’d been meaning to visit her since I got here as she’s come down to visit me twice now, so I thought this weekend was as good as any. There are several ways of getting to Oxford but by far, the best I know of is the series of buses called the Oxford Tube. In almost all ways, the Oxford Tube is much better than anything that the London Public Transport department has to offer. The double-decker buses that come almost every ten minutes operate 24 hours and are fully air-conditioned, outfitted with reclining and very comfortable seats and a toilet to boot. The buses have three pick up and drop off points in London city (one very conveniently a ten minute walk from me at Notting Hill Gate) taking about one and a half hours to get to the high street in Oxford city.

Despite the prediction of gloomy and drizzly weather, we were spoilt with almost clear blue skies for most of day and got to see Oxford when it was most spectacular. There is an open topped tour bus that takes you around to all of the different sights to see, but because we had Kath as our own little tour guide, we got to see it from a completely different and most probably much better angle.

Unlike the universities we have back home or in the United States, Oxford is laid out as if the entire city is the campus. Students must be affiliated with a college that is really more an association that anything (only the freshers or first year students tend to stay on campus) and are strewn between the cafes, pubs and stores of the city. The actual University buildings are a little bit further out but things are within a decent walking distance made even shorter by a bike or bus ride. Every college is extremely private with visitors not generally welcomed and the grounds kept pristine at all times. We had a good laugh at the story that Kath told us of the beautifully green grass that college members had “grass privileges” for in the summer time allowing them to sit on it, or play croquet only between the times of 11 and 1. Having said that I suppose there were very good reasons it was as green and lush as it was.

The town itself is beautiful filled with many historic and well maintained buildings linked together by a series of cobblestone paths. We saw many sights including Carfax Tower (the best aerial view of Oxford), Christ Church (one of the largest colleges surrounded by stunning gardens and rivers full of rowers and punters), the Radcliffe Square and Radcliffe Camera, the Bodleian Library (that stocks all of the published articles and journals in the world), and the Bridge of Sighs (a model of the famous Ponte de Sospiri in Venice). All the buildings are intricately detailed with stunning stone work and heads of people, dragons and gargoyles adorning the outside.

We had a great lunch at the pub, Far from the Madding Crowds, and indulged in the whole café, market and book culture (the amazingly huge Blackwell’s). It was a great day thanks to Kath and we headed back completely tired and content.

More Readable Test Names

Patrick Work Related

We put in a JUnit hack into our latest project that allows us to produce more readable test names.

@Override public String getName() {
    return getClass().getSimpleName().replaceAll("Test$", "")
        + super.getName().substring(4).replaceAll("([A-Z])", " $1").toLowerCase();
}

Turning testTellsMeHowMuchInterestIEarnInAYear() from the BankManagerTest into Bank Manager tells me how much interest i earn in a year..

Note the disclaimer: Tests in IntelliJ are no longer clickable afterwards but the stack traces still are

Wacky Weather Around the World

Patrick General

Hail DamageThe picture to the left is the damage that freak hail did to my car last week back home. It’s a rare thing, maybe occurring once every three years but made even more stranger by the fact that it all happened in October instead of the peak of summer (December/January). I was even told by my family it was something like 37 degrees!

Strangely London has been rather moderate, with an extended summer that has allowed me to enjoy a lot more of the outdoors than I thought I would have. I even managed to get a hold of some okay runners for a decent price that let me go for a jog around Hyde Park today (just down the end of my street). I hope that everyone and their possessions back home got away better than my car did.