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My primary client enrolled in a PL/SQL class at Learniing Tree, and I was sent with him. This is a nice change of pace; fortunately we are in the Reston center so it’s not far at all from my house. Learning Tree, for those of you who haven’t heard of it before, is a super-expensive IT training outfit - it’s a few thousand dollars for a week-long class. The perks you get are a varied breakfast (bagels, doughnuts, oatmeal, fruit), free sodas (multiple vending machines that are set to $0.00), an afternoon snack (Tuesdays are the famous cookie day), and various other little bonuses like notepaper, pens, etc - you could walk in empty-handed and still be fully prepared for class.
The subject matter off this particular course is difficult. I have a basic understanding of relational databases, and a very basic understanding of SQL, but the vocabulary is really tough and class format is confusing because the teacher jumps from Powerpoint to a demonstration screen behind my back. Fortunately I have a copy of the study book, which has all the Powerpoint slides, and I even have a table for it rather than having to balance it on my lap. Signs I’ve struggled with so far are “cursor” (we couldn’t come up with a conceptually accurate sign because we don’t know yet what it means, so we are using the sign for the kind of cursor that you manipulate with the mouse), “anonymous” (NO NAME or NO LABEL), “declare” (ESTABLISH), and “variable” (using VARIETY because there wasn’t really an easy single sign).
Hey, it just occurred to me to wonder where my Random House ASL Computer Dictionary is hiding.
Comments
Done a ton of work on PL/SQL, mostly as an interpreter and occasionally as a coder (not a huge fan of Oracle). Try these on for size:
Variable: either fingerspell it (you’d be surprised how blurry-fast it can get), or sign NAME… since that is really what it is: a name which references a value in memory which can change. If you have to contrast it with a “constant”, try using a sign like CONTINUE.
A cursor is a pointer to where you are in a database (or something like that). I’ve used a sign where the non-dominant hand is a “5″ (representing a list of things) and the cursor is an index finger moving up and down, pointing to items in the list.
These have worked for me, anyway. YMMV 
I took a Learning Tree course back in ‘98 I think for Java. I actually took it in NYC, not around here. Anyway, unfortunately I didn’t find it very helpful. There were so many programmers with backgrounds in C++ that kept asking questions and derailing the class, that the teacher, about halfway through, said no more questions and proceeded to race through the rest of the content in double the speed if not more because we were so behind! Luckily my company paid. Right after this, I got a project that I had to learn Lotus Domino for, so I had to shelve learning Java and only this fall have started to try to learn it again - this time at my own pace from a book! That was the only real computer training class I’ve taken so I have no idea how it compares to others, but I have to believe that like other institutions, classes at The Learning Tree vary widely in quality from teacher to teacher, class to class, etc.
Yep, I’d agree with that. This teacher is pretty good; she will allow a few questions now and then but only if they’re actually relevant. And she has zero tolerance for whispering among students! These are all adults but she treats them like kids in that regard - “did you have a question? something you wanted to share with the class?” It’s pretty funny!