Testimonials
Here are a few comments from past participants in Allen's classes and beneficiaries of his consulting work:[The OO Workshop] was a humbling experience even for our most senior OO programmer. I believe I [now] understand OO's fundamental principals and how they're applied. I believe our team now understands that as well. However, I do anticipate bringing Allen back in at various points in our analysis and design phase to offer his critique and help us in our application. Do we do everything right? No! But we do it far better now than we did before.
Looking at our code now, I feel much better about how it's organized, about how it performs, and about how easy it is to maintain.
... would I do it again? Absolutely!
-Bill Hamilton, MTS Techchnologies.
(Bill's complete 6-page letter, which has some good advice about the OO-adoption process as well as a review of Allen's class, is at /company/recommendation.html.
The ability to design a system architecture is the most important and most powerful tool that a developer can possess. But it is a skill that is difficult to learn, and one that is almost impossible to teach. Allen Holub's design training workshop does a great job of doing just that...In short, [the OO Workshop] is a tremendous learning experience for any object oriented developer who is serious about their craft.
-Eric Armstrong
(Eric's complete comments are on his blog: http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=24085).
I was highly impressed by [Allen]...Allen's depth of knowledge is awesome. I have never heard a presenter talk about the Java language with such understanding and background, with the exception of some of the Java architects from Sun (e.g. Joshua Bloch and Neal Gafter).
Allen had extensive course materials--from his web site I printed out more than two inches of documentation. He started the course talking about object oriented design and included analysis of a case study (the "Bank of Allen"). We then did our own object oriented design case study as homework. We also covered basic UML and topics such as interfacing with managers and other people involved with projects. As we got into language specifics we started with a brief overview of Java essentials so as to highlight some of the "corner cases" in the language. We emphasized such topics as threading where coding is more complicated, then concluded with AWT and Swing.
My personal experience prior to taking Allen's class was as a Java programmer for about two years with a total industry experience of ten years. I also have a bachelor's in math-education and a master's in math.
-Kai Middleton
Thanks for your dynamic and professional talk about Tiger 1.5 to the EBIG Java SIG. I am hearing great feedback and it looks as though you got some great discussion started. Your expertise shines through and you have a great sense for speaking for telling “reality” – how it is, the good the bad and the ugly. Users really appreciate you sharing your knowledge with them. We appreciate you taking time to come to our Java SIG and talk with ebig folks.- Kristen Kuhns, Executive Director, www.ebig.org
The discussions/design work with the other students was great. The "practice" really helped to illuminate the concepts.- Clay Bennet
Of the OO Workshop: It was just what I needed. Thanks!- Scott Gould
Of the OO Workshop: Best course I took on OO (out of three).- Tarak Fekih, Logitech
One of the reasons that I selected this class was that I felt it would give me an accurate introduction as to what OO design really is. I got that and more. Anybody can create an object---I needed to learn OO design. Good class.- Chris Breazeal: Sr. Product Developer, BMC
If I had found this knowledge earlier in my career, life would have been a lot more pleasant.- Todd Thal: Web developer, doubletwist.com
This was a very instructive course. The portions covering design and process were inspiring. I have read many of Allen's writings and now have completed his course, and I believe he has much to offer the software community. I am excited about software again!-Bradly Smith
His course offers some very useful information about the OO-Design process, and challenges most programmers to think about software design in ways that can be difficult (and enlightening) compared to their current design practices.Allen understands this material very well, and present it in a way that keeps the student's interest high.
-John Beltran, Autodesk
Allen always has well informed responses to questions. I have learned and understood more this week than I have in quite a while.-Rebecca Jones, Innovative Interfaces, inc.
A very thorough coverage of OO Design, with great attention to detail.-Eddie Dickie, Innovative Interfaces, inc.
Allen is an excellent, engaging, and immensely knowledgable instructor. The material covered is really not covered elsewhere.- Craig Kapfer, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Allen is a very attentive and patient instructor, and goes out of his way to make sure each concept is understood by everyone. No one should feel left behind. An extremely useful and instructive course.- Jo Stockley
I'm a physicist at Lawrence Livermore Lab who took a ten-week C++ course taught by Allen Holub at UC Berkeley in spring, 1997. At that point I'd done a great deal of Fortran programming and a fair amount of C, but had had no exposure to object-oriented methods or to C++. Although the pace of the course was rapid, I managed to keep up, and learned the methods that are now the mainstay of my C++ scientific programming. Mr. Holub was a clear and enthusiastic instructor, and devised a set of homework assignments which nicely demonstrated general object-oriented techniques while also introducing specific C++ syntax. Mr. Holub's course was well worth the investment of time and money.-Robert Horton
I would strongly recommend this course to any OOP engineer needing to get a genuine grip on the design process. The sequence of hands-on exercises provide a very real and understandable glimpse into a design methodology that could reduce total project time and wasteful debugging- David Vinson, Best.com
