Jade more available to students

Jade grows academic program – plans to make Jade more available to students

Young developers confirm JADE’s winning formula

Christchurch 27 May: Jade Software Corporation has announced three more universities in Canada, Malaysia and Sri Lanka are now teaching JADE, taking the total number of institutions offering the object-oriented development environment to 34.

First included in studies at the University of Canterbury in 1997, JADE is today taught in nine countries outside of New Zealand - America, China, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Britain, Ireland, Canada and Australia. As a result, each year more than 3000 JADE-trained students enter the global workforce as JADE developers, project managers and business graduates. This year the University of Western Sydney alone will have more than 1000 students graduating with JADE skills.

“JADE makes it easy for students to grasp computing concepts,” said Keith Cowan, Jade Higher Education Global Program Manager. “JADE provides all the tools students need to build and run a complete business information system in a single development/runtime/database environment. With JADE, students can learn in one consistent OO development environment all the necessary real world skills such as analysis, design, coding and testing, without the struggle of complex syntax.”

Students use JADE to study Object Oriented technology; database, systems analysis and design, programming, e-commerce, enterprise development and deployment. According to Keith the biggest advantage that Jade provides students is that they can learn and do so much in such a short amount of time. “In two weeks with JADE they will be vastly ahead of where they would be with another environment they may have spent five weeks working on.”

JADE gives students the time to not only study the theory, but to perform comprehensive practical assignments using the JADE OO technology. Many students elect to build their business project application solutions in JADE because it is easier and quicker than other tools.

“Feedback from students on their experiences with JADE had been very positive,” said Keith. “Through their studies they are exposed to numerous programming languages – including the relational database world of industry heavy weights Microsoft and Oracle – and have developed an informed opinion as to the comparative benefits of the JADE environment.”

Dion Peszynski, a student last year at Victoria University, built a JADE solution for Centreport, along with three other students. “When taking on the project, we had no experience with JADE and little experience with the Object Orientated paradigm,” said Dion. “Personally, I was wary about working in an environment which was foreign to me. JADE is certainly not like most other tools utilised at University, however, much to my pleasure, I was impressed with how easy it was to learn, but more so how powerful a tool it is once you learnt how to use it.”

A fellow colleague, William Stenger said, “we became very fond of JADE and miss it sorely now when we must produce work in other languages and environments. I do hope to work with JADE again in the near future.”

Giving JADE graduates the ability to continue working with JADE has become a important priority for JADE, confirmed Keith. “They are great advocates – they are young and passionate about JADE and don’t have careers invested in other technologies. They are building the business systems of the future and need to do this with modern technology. We definitely want to make it easier and more affordable for them to develop solutions in JADE and will do this with the launch of JADE 6 due shortly.”

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