KirkHings.com

photo credit: schedetzki

Challenge: Create three lists of buzzwords typically used by business consultants. Randomly select three words and put in a sentence to form something ridiculous that a business consultant might say with an air of authority.

My solution:

package phraseomatic;

/**
 *
 * @author kirkster
 */
public class Main {

    /**
     * @param args the command line arguments
     */
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // create three word sets to build from
        String[] wordListOne = {"24/7", "multi-Tier", "30,000 foot", "B2B", "win-win", "front-end", "web-based", "pervasive", "smart", "six-sigma", "critical-path", "dynamic"};
        String[] wordListTwo = {"empowered", "sticky", "value-added", "oriented", "centric", "distributed", "clustered", "branded", "outside-the-box", "positioned", "networked", "focused", "leveraged", "aligned", "targeted", "shared", "cooperative", "accelerated", "semantic"};
        String[] wordListThree = {"process", "tipping-point", "solution", "architecture", "core competency", "strategy", "mindshare", "portal", "space", "vision", "paradigm", "mission"};

        // determine how many words in each list
        int oneLength = wordListOne.length;
        int twoLength = wordListTwo.length;
        int threeLength = wordListThree.length;

        // generate three random numbers
        int rand1 = (int) (Math.random() * oneLength);
        int rand2 = (int) (Math.random() * twoLength);
        int rand3 = (int) (Math.random() * threeLength);

        // build a phrase
        String phrase = wordListOne[rand1] + " " + wordListTwo[rand2] + " " + wordListThree[rand3];

        // print out the phrase
        System.out.println("Consultant says: \"We need a " + phrase + "!\"");
    }

}

Here is the output:

Phrase-O-Matic pumps out business consultant wisdom

This programming challenge is from the Head First Java book, which I studied and practiced spring 2009. The end result itself is not terribly sexy, but I liked the algorithm construction process. My programming curriculum changed course during the first year, and they eliminated our Java classes. I was still curious about Java, so I took it upon myself to self-learn Java. This was one of my first products.

I post these self-instructional challenges for a few reasons. One is to demonstrate my programming learning, experience, and progression. Another reason is to make sure my code and solutions are indexed by search engines, so that other beginning programmers may get help if they need it. Finally, self-instructional challenges are interesting and different than academic challenges because I sought, discovered, and performed them on my own volition without anyone else telling me to do so. I did it because I wanted to learn and practice.