The Cattle Drive forum is where the drivers get together to complain, uh rather, discuss their assignments and encourage each other. Thanks to the enthusiastic initiative of Johannes de Jong, you can keep track of your progress on the drive with the Assignment Log. If you're tough enough to get through the nitpicking, you'll see your name on the Graduation Log.

And a shiny spur goes to...
To start the New Year off right, a big “yee-haw!” goes out to Rajan Chhibber and Michael Pearson for keeping their heads high and plowing their way through the assignments. Rajan completed the Java Fundamentals course, and is moving on to OOP. Michael finished OOP and jumped right back in the saddle to start Servlets. Great job y’all!

Back from being out on the range...
Michael Pearson and Michael Matola rejoined us after several weeks away from the punishment of the Cattle Drive. Welcome back, y’all!

Saddle sore...
Keep an eye out for these Cattle Drivers, who are hard at work on the last assignment of a series, so are expected to celebrate a graduation soon: Rajan Chhibber, Terrence Doyle, Christie Xu, Daniel Olsen and Jason Adam. Hang in there, y'all, those saddle sores will soon seem worth it!

Nitpicking is hard work too...
Let’s not all forget to tip our hats to the nitpicker that gives us more heartburn than a bowl of cooky’s chili, Marilyn deQueiroz. If it weren’t for her, them cows would be roaming wild!

Tips for the Trail…...
Ever wonder why those oh so simple assignments end up with so many nits to pick? Here’s a little advice gathered from some weary cattle drivers hanging out at the watering hole. For the first assignment, called Java-1a Hundred, some words from the wise and weathered: (really) read the style guide and then check for those pesky spacing and indentation nits!

Written by Jason Adam and Pauline McNamara