Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head - Luke 9:57-59

Gallery 1
Gallery 2

1. 99% of the classes were taught from a stage rather than from the centre of a circle.

I'm sure this is of help to the teacher as he/she can see the entire class, but this is to the detriment of the class as this shift in perspective means that all but the first row can't easily see the teacher's footwork - kinda important in a dance lesson...

2. The changing of dance partners during the lessons was incredibly infrequent. Most classes changed partners every five minutes or so, some changed just a couple of times in the entire lesson and a few didn't bother to change them at all.

None of the teachers setup a proper rotation system to ensure minimum amount of disruption, instead randomness and chaos reigned. This makes for a *very* frustrating class. I've been to other weekenders with comparable class sizes and the teachers have managed the classes much better.

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
and sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
and looked down one as far as I could
to where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
and having perhaps the better claim
because it was grassy and wanted wear;
though as for that, the passing there
had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
in leaves no feet had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less travelled by,
and that has made all the difference

- Robert Frost

INFJs are gentle, caring, complex and highly intuitive individuals. Artistic and creative, they live in a world of hidden meanings and possibilities. Only one percent of the population has an INFJ Personality Type, making it the most rare of all the types.

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INFJs place great importance on havings things orderly and systematic in their outer world. They put a lot of energy into identifying the best system for getting things done, and constantly define and re-define the priorities in their lives.

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They are deep, complex individuals, who are quite private and typically difficult to understand. INFJs hold back part of themselves, and can be secretive.

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But the INFJ is as genuinely warm as they are complex. INFJs are concerned for people's feelings, and try to be gentle to avoid hurting anyone. They are very sensitive to conflict, and cannot tolerate it very well. Situations which are charged with conflict may drive the normally peaceful INFJ into a state of agitation or charged anger. They may tend to internalize conflict into their bodies, and experience health problems when under a lot of stress.

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Because the INFJ has such strong intuitive capabilities, they trust their own instincts above all else. This may result in an INFJ stubborness and tendency to ignore other people's opinions. They believe that they're right. On the other hand, INFJ is a perfectionist who doubts that they are living up to their full potential. INFJs are rarely at complete peace with themselves - there's always something else they should be doing to improve themselves and the world around them. They believe in constant growth, and don't often take time to revel in their accomplishments. They have strong value systems, and need to live their lives in accordance with what they feel is right. In deference to the Feeling aspect of their personalities, INFJs are in some ways gentle and easy going. Conversely, they have very high expectations of themselves, and frequently of their families. They don't believe in compromising their ideals.

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In the workplace, the INFJ usually shows up in areas where they can be creative and somewhat independent. They have a natural affinity for art, and many excel in the sciences, where they make use of their intuition. INFJs can also be found in service-oriented professions. They are not good at dealing with minutia or very detailed tasks. The INFJ will either avoid such things, or else go to the other extreme and become enveloped in the details to the extent that they can no longer see the big picture. An INFJ who has gone the route of becoming meticulous about details may be highly critical of other individuals who are not.

"Yeah, we wrote Flex before Macromedia did"

* Having an application with over 200 forms would mean that the size of the compiled SWF would be huge and the start-up time of the application would be terrible.

* The IDE and compiler provided by Macromedia was awful, being slow and only performing some very weak checks on the code. This made development very slow.

1. We changed our compiler to Kinetic Fusion
This compiler was several orders of magnitude quicker than the one offered by Macromedia. Kinetic Fusion uses an XML format (RVML) to define the symbols and MovieClip hierarchy which then link to external Actionscript (.as) files.



It also had the added advantage of performing "deep semantic checking" which gave us the option of more statically typing our code.



Adobe have made the new Flex compiler is dramatically better.

2. Moved the IDE over to Netbeans
Okay, Netbeans was pretty rubbish in Version 3, but since then it has been moving on at a fine old pace. We knocked together a Netbeans module to give us code highlighting for Actionscript:



We also then wrote another Module to automatically manipulate the RVML for us so we didn't have to edit the XML by hand:



...and we managed to integrate our new Kinetic Fusion compiler into Netbeans via Ant!

We were already using Netbeans to write the Java back-end of iWiz, so moving our Actionscript development into Netbeans meant we had one IDE to rule them all.

Adobe chose to base their new IDE of the Eclipse platform.

3. Developed the RADIX Framework
RADIX stood for Rapid Application Development In Xml. This framework was started about a year before I joined Trigger. This was basically our version of MXML, allowing us to define form layout, event handling and data binding:



We used a code generator tool to generate the skeleton controller class for the form based upon the XML file. We would then add logic to drive the form.

Since we had an application to write and limited resources it is considerably more primitive than MXML. Unlike MXML, our XML files were interpreted by the iWiz runtime rather than being compiled directly into Actionscript.

4. Modules
We developed our own primitive module system to break the application into smaller chunks. These modules corresponded to the areas in the product's business, each module loaded upon selection that accordion section:

"Great minds think alike and fools seldom differ"

1. Mambo in open hold (1-2-3-5-6-7).

2. Man's right-handed comb and anti-clockwise 180 degree turn (1-2-3). Step on the spot (5-6-7).

3. Keeping hold of both the lady's hands, man's left-handed comb (1), man's right-handed comb (2-3). Guide the lady's hands down to your waist (5-6-7).

4. Holding both the lady's hands, reverse cuban break (1), brining the lady to your right (2). With your right elbow flick the lady's left hand up in the air (3). Complete the lady's footwork so she ends up facing you (5-6-7).

5. Right-hand flick (1-2-3) and finish mambo (5-6-7). You should be in a right-over-left grip.

6. Cuban break (1), bringing the lady to your right (2). Nail the lady's right hand (which is in your left) to your right hip. Bring the lady's left hand (which is in your right over the back of your head so that you are back-to-back (3). This move is MUCH easier if you have a very loose grip on the lady's hand. Reverse this movement, bringing the lady's left hand back (5). Cross-body lead footwork into curtsey, taking hold of the lady's right bicep with your left hand on (6) and completing the turn on (7).

7. On (1) cross your right arm under your left to take hold of the lady's left bicep with your right hand. Let go of your left hand's grip (2-3). Spin the lady anti-clockwise whilst doing a hook turn (5-6-7).

1. Bachata side-step (1-2-3) and get a hand-to-hand grip with your your right hand (5-6-7).

2. Step left, using both the lady's hands to turn the lady clockwise (1-2-3). Lady's right-handed hair comb and guy's left handed hair comb (5-6-7).

3. Step back, keeping the connection between your arms (1-2-3), then pull the lady into a shoulder lock (5-6-7). Frank called this a "Dominican Republic hug" in that the guy is at 90 degrees to the girl (so he can whisper sweet nothings into her ear).

4. Lead the lady forward (1-2), kicking your right foot forward (3) and then lead her back (5-6), kicking your left foot back (7).

5. Start leading the lady forward (1-2), but take her into the T-stance (3). Pressure the lady downwards and then back up (5-6-7).

6. Using your right hand turn the lady anticlockwise to face you (1-2) crossing her hands above her head (3). Scoop the lady's left arm with your right hand in front of your body bringing her arms back together above her head (5-6-7).

7. Scoop the lady's right arm with your left hand in front of your body bringing her arms back together above her head (1-2-3). Scoot down the lady's body making contact at her elbows and hips and then from the hips come back up to standing.

8. Side-to-side bachata (1-2-3-5-6-7)

9. Step out with your left foot (1) and back to centre (2). The lady should mirror you. Repeat out (3), back (4) and as you step out on (5) the lady should step forward into the gap between your feet. Step back together (6). This time, do what the lady has just done, stepping forward between her feet (7) and then back together (8).