The course is over, and I’m happy to say that the whole experiment of taking a course while teaching at the same time was a success in every way that I hoped for.
I learned a lot about a new field (Android app programming). Though I could have theoretically picked it up myself at any time, there wasn’t anything that would drive me to study and learn so I almost certainly would not have learned it. A friend of mine suggested that having to teach a new subject is reason enough to figure it out, but even that I’m not so sure about (having, hm, done that before :)).
By the end of the course I’ve decided that John was right and I overdesigned the database schema for the timetable app. It’s only three tables on the phone, but even that turned out to be more work than I had patience to deal with. So in order to complete the app I’ll have to make some schema changes, which I hope to do in the coming semester.
Also in the coming semester I’m going to be taking the Apple equivalent of DPS924: DPS923, where I’ll be learning iOS programming. I seriously dislike Apple (even more than Microsoft), and I don’t see myself ever writing anything useful for iOS, but I’d like to know what the platform is like and how objective C compares with other languages. Again – something I could figure out myself but won’t unless I have deadlines to work up to. I’ll probably be blogging about that course too, though I forsee many posts ending up like this one, not tagged safe for seneca :)