I had a fairly interesting weekend. I started using IntelliJ for my java programming and I have found it to be as good if not better than netbeans or eclipse – both of which I find good. IntelliJ has superior syntax highlighting and code analysis and i think this sways things very much into its corner. I use ReSharper at work and these guys make it and its apparent in IntelliJ.

I’ve been working on my investment tracker application which was for a long time a project that I’d just wanted to get off the ground and it has thus far come together quite nicely. Its really a best practises approach to writing Spring web applications and I’ve used it to explore the many facets of the technology. It went stagnant for a while because I was finding the webflow work quite frustrating. I solve the problem this weekend and like a ricocheting bullet I’ve continued to progress. The one thing that was bother me is the updating of the entities in the applications – basically the ‘U’ in CRUD as this is a laborious process of creating new pages to edit the various entities. So saw Podio, a web application Citrix acquired and used it for a while and I was amazed at how they did in-place editing. I wanted to do that. So I came accross in my research x-editable, which is precisely that. i can now update my entities in-place from the ‘view’ entity pages.  All I needed to do was write the backend server code to respond to the POSTs that this JavaScript framework would make on my behalf when I edited a label/link that I tied to x-editable. Absolutely marvellous.Upped my productivity by 100% because within 10 minutes I had it up and running, and within the session I had all the entities being updated in-place(the server code would update the entities in the database).

Apart from that I had a quick look into iPandas and numpy which is used for dealing with sets of numbers,figures etc and well basically filtering, cutting and splicing them and basically dealing with them. Quite powerful library. I’m going to be using this in my data statistics and visualization module soon so I wanted to read up a bit more on it. I’ll read the official course work this week so I should see some familiar stuff.  I’ve got a dataset in mind that I’d like to visualise and analyse so I’m keen to learn more.

I also pushed by investment tracker code to github. My git skills have come along remarkably and even more so now that Citrix moved to Git from Perforce.

All in all, a good weekend of technology, computing and IT.

So Brexit is fun - its the new thing that is driving social media and the news. So I’ve been thinking about it and what's going to happen because of it. So some predictions are in order…

We will either stay in the single market or we wont. My guess is that we will stay.

We will govern ourselves with very little laws from Brussels dictating our everyday goings about with the notable exceptions that will inevitably be put in place to deal with how we deal with the single market access and how we deal with the immigration issues.

So I think we’ll continue to pay the EU money but this time not as a member state but as a cost to stay in the single market. Not being in the single market makes a lot of things really difficult and uncertain the rest of this blog!

So we’ll pay to be in the single market and as such trade wont be more difficult or more expensive.

I think the compromise is that free movement will continue in some form, perhaps limited in some way but not entirely cut off.

So how is this a big problem? I don’t think Brexit will be a big problem based on what I’ve predicted. It might be a big problem if we’re not in the single market anymore. But I doubt that.

Some reasons:

The deal might be that UK keeps paying the same amount of money or very similar (so EU happy) so that the UK can stay in single market(so UK happy). So the EU can expect to keep receiving expected amounts of money from UK to drive EU infrastructure/costs. So its a win-win for everyone.

• Trade thus will be unaffected in this case, otherwise it will be more expensive for everyone
• I think brexit will mean no more Laws/Rules by the EU for UK (that’s what the UK people want)
  • Be very bad if this is not done - uk people will rebel
  • Laws by UK now with perhaps the exception on immigration which will be a compromise if single market is used.
    • Tougher laws on settlement. Still free movement though. Pay EU membership fee for single market access.

But what if ?

Sure why not, everyone else is doing it so why can I? So if we don't have access to the free market in the EU – what could the possible outcomes and consequences be?

• EU residence will pay more taxes to curb net income lost from UK EU membership

• Less export to EU

• More expensive to Export from the UK into EU
• UK companies who rely on EU export will suffer if they don’t adapt
• These companies will need to satisfy growth using locally or other alternatives
• What companies in the UK export to the EU regularly and heavily?
• What are their alternatives?
• Low cost/low paid/low skilled work such as cleaning/restaurant staff/shop clerks/building
• How does UK companies satisfy this gap in the short term.
• What is the cost of less staff from EU on local UK companies ? Or higher cost UK staff on UK companies in the short term.
• Increased costs to UK companies and their UK consumers
• EU will get less products from UK decreasing EU competition amongst themselves
• EU companies might do well if UK was major competition to local industries
• EU might have its residence pay more tax as UK wont pay its EU membership anymore

• Less imports from the EU
  • UK companies need to either source locally(ore elsewhere) and thus increase profits for those companies that can satisfy now strained exports from EU
    • Which companies in UK will prosper and which will suffer? Good question.
  • UK needs the EU for travel and holiday requirements
    • This could force UK residence to stay locally to satisfy leisure requirements
      • Increases UK travel, accommodation and holiday resorts?
      • Local leisure companies have less competition in the short term from EU companies and profits could increase.
      • Areas of local holidaying in more demand – like Cornwall, Dorset, Weymouth etc?

Obvious expected outcomes of the Brexit deal if not in single market

• More difficult trade - how difficult? depends on costs that would be incurred by both receiving and sending parties
• Less movement of people into and out of Britain
  • Less holidays abroad or not affected at all?
  • Less unskilled works coming into Britain or maybe not?
  • Less skilled workers leaving Britain?
• NB: Short term implications could be different to long term implications.

Caution about investing in the leisure industry in Britain

• Local tourist companies and those that benefit from EU travellers might be affected negatively in the short term from the decline in EU tourists. Its likely that they wont recuperate costs in the short term from British income alone.
  • Investing in these companies could see profits tumble(existing companies) and it should not be wise to invest in them
    • These companies would be those such as tourist attractions - less so local holidaying spots which should become more locally encouraged and profitable
    • There will be less tourists from the EU.
  • Companies that could do well are those that benefit from British holidays.
    • Cornwall and such non-EU but sunny locations will be more desirable than EU if going to the EU is actually that hard (might be affordable to UK residence despite brexit so not a full gone conclusion)

Will the costs incurred by local businesses, as a result of less workers and trade result in increased profits for UK companies?

Short term predictions

• Will take a bit of time for the effects to show up so I don’t think these will affect companies in the short term or if it does not by much.
  • If anything they will be affected by current issues not specifically to Brexit, such as current decline in milk demand for whatever.
  • I think a small amount of companies will do particularly well or badly in the short term
    • They might speculate but revenues should be consistent.
    • Stock prices might fluctuate based on drama/hype, affecting perceived value in companies but actual businesses doing normal business should continue as normal - revenues same but maybe value due to sentiment might drop.
      • Good time to invest now while market speculates and the prices drop due to speculation/unknown
• This largely depends on how drastic the Brexit deal it and how immediate its effects are
  • I doubt they will be drastic however. If drastic, some medium term expectations could come sooner - see below - otherwise longer
• Companies who are forward thinking and depend on the EU will see the changes they will need to make in order to satisfy growth expectations moving forward.
• These companies might announce lower expectations in meeting growth expectations and are the companies to look out for now and into the medium term.

• Seek out current importers into the UK and their EU suppliers ( and their respective industries as they will be going through the same issues)

• These EU suppliers could see increase in profits - invest in them for a short period.

• Seek out companies that could grow in the future to meet this now expensive demand from eu suppliers - invest in them, profits should increase.

Medium term predictions

• I think as costs in the UK for companies increase due to lack of low cost alternatives from EU, companies will start making less profits and start feeling the squeeze.

  • The UK people will pay more or things.
    • Especially if demand is not yet satisfied by the yet to be growing local industry that will/would meet this expectation longer term. It will cost more to manufacture things genrally
  • I think this will also be a growing and profitable period for new alternative-non-EU companies that now supply the past demand in the UK.
    • These are the companies to invest in
    • Companies that don’t adapt to changes will devalue as alternative competition increases.
  • People wont like taxes going up at this time over and above the quite plausible taxes that will go on EU-related goods/trade(which is think will be par for the course for Brexit)
• Local companies will try meet demand as it was with EU supply
  • New companies will grow or at least whatever non-EU companies that try to plug the gap will grow. These should start bridging the cost cap that companies have been seeing with their profits dropping…they should now start to even out.
    • Existing large capital companies will see profits drop a little but not hugely and not for a continuing basis… Unsure about this.
• (Short or medium term) Cost of EU materials sought by the UK will increase partly due to increased taxes on import(from single market) and the demand on these materials in the UK…until the UK can source these out for themselves
• EU companies could see a increase in profits until UK sorts alternative, cheaper supply routes or and it pays premium for past suppliers. Driving up UK costs

Long term predictions

• Once they find a non-UE alternative, profits should increase for them and their supplies which could be local to the UK
• Short-medium term predictions could stabilise now. Seek alternative investments based on the times
• Equilibrium again. Boring again.

Summary of effects of leaving the single market

Short term probabilities of Brexit – shortly after Brexit

• Trade will be more difficult
• Less people entering UK from EU
• More demand on EU supplies

Long term probabilities of Brexit – after Brexit is in full effect

• Less EU residence in UK,
• Less travel to EU for UK residence
• Less unskilled jobs to EU workers in UK
• UK companies do less business in EU
• Less competition from EU businesses in UK
• Local industry should profit as less is received from EU
• Less population will ease supply/demand on property
• Less demand on EU supplies
• Companies need to start coming up with non-eu strategies to increase profits moving forward

What wont change despite of brexit.

• Services industry dependant on skilled labour - banking, law, doctors, IT, technology and innovation in general.
• British country side

Cost of materials needed in the EU might go up and so it might be more expensive for the EU to buy UK materials while the UK materials industry could profit from the increased demand in the short term until the EU satisfies its own demand

So all in all, there is a lot of instability and opportunity in a Brexit outcome which leaves us out of the Single market. And if that happens it will be an exciting times I think.  But no one can tell the future.

I wrote an exam today and it was pretty tough. They aren’t usually this tough.  Looking back at it now in hindsight, there wasn’t much one could do ‘more’ in preparing for the exam other than just knowing how stuff is done and what stuff is when they ask you. I suppose you perhaps could have done more exercises i.e... practised more but really the exam was about knowing what to do when it asked you to do it. The tough thing about the exam was not having to remember or know how to do something, which of course was the main idea but more the time it took to read the questions was very long. The questions were long winded. The paper was 3 hours but the content of the paper was more appropriate to a 4hr or longer exam. I read as fast as I could and I'm not a slow reader.

This exam was “Software development using Java”. And in most cases the exam was more about analysing scenarios and diagramming. Java was just the tip of the iceberg really.

Basics include Object/Class/sequence diagrams. Analysing requirements and designing and implementing solutions(in java) for those scenarios. Use cases and walk through along with acceptance testing and various bit and bobs.

Sometimes I wonder where the examiner thinks the student can find the time to not only think about the answer, follow multiple pages of information for the questions that follow, followed by questions themselves and then still find time to draw multiple diagrams and refer back to previous pages of information whilst looking for the next question’s referral to previous pages data. Tough stuff. And indeed that's what it was all about. Having done the build up to the exam in the form of multiple assignments, its quite obvious that the exam was not new material. It was content prepared from activities that would easily have appeared in assignments. This sounds fair, however these assignments take a lot longer to do, and a lot more is required and merely answering exam questions. So making the exam up form these assignment activities seems a stretch for me– particularly in the time and effort involved. And as mentioned most of the effort involved was not answering the question but it was reading it, and drawing it. Never mind.

That being said, there was a compromise, which I can only presume was due to the kinds of observations I’ve made here –  however done prior by the exam review team/staff, I imagine. I’m sure they realised the immensity of the tasks asked of this exam paper. So they threw a 40% saving grace multiple choice question section in. This means you can get 40% (minimum required to pass the exam) fairly quickly and then waste your time trying to read and get the rest of your marks in the time you’ve been allotted. So you can pass the exam, but you’re pretty unlikely to get a good mark.

I’m happy that there is a good chance I passed based on the accumulation of marks across the whole paper(even though I didn’t finish or answer everything), particularly in combination with the relatively easy multiple choice question section. I say relative in as much as the multiple choice questions where to select two options and often assess a diagram/scenario. Which while not your typical ‘easy’ ‘free marks everyone!’  multiple-choice variant, it was time-saving in contrast to the rest of the paper - which as I’m so painfully aware of now often asked too much of you, too many times draining previous minutes from the allotted 3hours. Making participating in the exam quite long and laborious.

What a day. But hey, I got through it in once piece. I can’t say the same about the other – I remember the guy in from of me, shaking his head and saying to those around him, “that was tough” and seeing most nod there heads in weary agreement. This was a battle, a hard fought battle. Bloody hell and its only Tuesday.