On 12/10/07, Todd Benson <caduceass / gmail.com> wrote: > On Dec 10, 2007 12:28 PM, Jim Clark <diegoslice / gmail.com> wrote: > > The same could be said for *every* training program out there. For > > instance, let's look at David Black's announcement today for > > "Introduction to Ruby on Rails" and "Advancing with Rails". Each course > > is 5 days long and costs $1,770 (or $1,550 early bird). So, for 80 hours > > (maybe only 70 hours if there is a lunch hour each day) of classroom > > instruction, it costs a minimum of $3,100 or $3,540 for > > procrastinators. You walk in on Monday, and 12 days later on the > > following Friday you walk out with head crammed full of Rails info. > > > > Do you think that is any better than 90 classroom hours spaced out over > > 8 months with another two or three hundred hours spent on homeworks / > > projects to slowly digest the material > I don't know what Austin would say, but I think so. I have every bit > of respect for what Mr. David Black does for the Ruby and also the > Rails community. So, I would take his classes. Not for credit, but > for knowledge. That's a tough question, actually, because I'm trying to convince my bosses to send me to the Erlang pragmatic workshop. I don't care if I learn Erlang out of it, but I'm going to come back with different ways of thinking about how I currently program. I think that what's different, Jim, is that there's *also* a distinct difference of a non-programmer learning to program (for which a longer course is probably better because there's more involved) and a programmer learning another language. By time I came to Ruby, I'd already explored (and written serious programs in) a dozen languages. Ruby itself wasn't that hard for me to wrap my head around. In some ways, I think that what David does is useful, but not necessarily for the reasons that people think. (I have taken a number of professional courses, including an interesting Java one with someone of Mr Black's stature that had been involved in writing an early C compiler. Interestingly, with that Java course, I'd managed to teach myself everything I would have learned in the course before the course was actually presented at the company.) These courses are as much about how to think about programming as they are about programming. They don't claim to make you a better programmer; they claim to make you think about how to approach a problem differently. (At least, that's my take.) I would have an issue if they started issuing "certificates." My issue is not with training; my issue is with training that "leads" to a certificate. > > Both classroom instruction and contributing to open source projects are > > valuable ways to learn the language. I just don't think it is up to you > > to decide what is the best use of my time or money :-) . > Well, nobody is deciding that. But, if you were the person hiring > someone to help you on something very important, would a cert matter > at all? I said what I said because I'd never hire based on a cert, and wouldn't look on a cert -- especially a cert for Ruby -- positively. I'd look primarily for shipping code and the ability to prove to me that your knowledge is solid. A cert doesn't show any of that; training and experience do. Like I said above: my issue is with the whole idea of certs. At best, they're useless as indicators of anything; at worst, they're scams. (And yes, much the said *can* be said of university degrees. I think there's a difference, but less than most people think.) -austin -- Austin Ziegler * halostatue / gmail.com * http://www.halostatue.ca/ * austin / halostatue.ca * http://www.halostatue.ca/feed/ * austin / zieglers.ca