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2026 preface. ComputerPREP brought me on starting in 1998 to write self-paced technical courses. The first was Developing & Utilizing JavaBeans, built around a Learning Guide and a run of hands-on “Skill Builder” exercises. More followed — a Java Programming with JDK 1.1.x course, and by 2000 a Java Programming with JDK 1.3 course I co-wrote with Chad Darby and Joy Muhammad. It was the same stretch I was finishing the Java and JavaBeans books, so the material was close at hand. The work was turning subjects I’d written about for readers into something a student could practice step by step, on their own, without an instructor in the room.
These belong to the same odd moment as the DigitalThink courses — the first serious push to move technical skill-building out of the classroom and the printed manual and into self-service software. The thing being prototyped, clumsily and over dial-up, was on-demand learning.
Self-paced technical courses authored for ComputerPREP between 1998 and 2000: Developing & Utilizing JavaBeans, Java Programming with JDK 1.1.x, and Java Programming with JDK 1.3 (the last co-authored). Each was structured as a Learning Guide with “Skill Builder” practice exercises throughout.
The bibliographic entry lives in the Catalog.