I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for any college courses for MV. I have 2 kids, aged 20 & 17. When the 20 yr old was in 7th grade (7 years ago) they were exposed to Microsoft Office items like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher and even Access. Likewise for the 17 yr old more recently.
>From that point forward, the kids are incredibly immersed in everything GUI/windows/internet. The endless hours of IMing, downloading, surfing and everything else GUI seems to point forward in the right direction. Thus, imagine a college student considering such courses as Cisco Certification, MCSE and other highly visible entities also considering an MV course if it were offered. Upon the first day they would quickly drop the course as MV offers neither an entertainable/WYSIWYG environment, a familiar data structure (to those weened on everything MS), a practical purpose for the individual nor any seemingly useful employment opportunities. Sorry for the dark cloud but I can't imagine even the most purposeful young adult considering MV. I teach the Computer merit badge in the Boy Scouts and even that course outline is heavily MS. I even took the brightest kid in my class, a senior at a local High-Tech (Gifted & Talented) high school and fired up one of my D3 systems to show him how I make a living. I spent way too much time trying to make analogies in MV to what I know he knows about MS Access. This kid is Cisco Certified from his school and capable of understanding the MV model. But since it was different, it was an uphill battle to illustrate some of its superior features. I saw the look in his eyes that he was being polite in letting me speak but he was clearly not interested in something that looks like DOS. While I know that there are many 4GL's and GUI overlays for MV, it still is a huge amount of command-line stuff. We are the best kept secret in the computer business. Virtually zero people have heard of Pick, MV or any of the old or present flavors. Yes, everyone's heard of IBM but that's about it. Honeywell makes air conditioners, Mcdonnel Douglass makes airplanes and Sanyo makes consumer electronics. I believe there is a delicate balance between proficient MV programmers and MV environments. The newer MV programmers may have gotten thrust into supporting a MV environment when their employers added that slight responsibility to their otherwise IT (network/Ms/unix) list. I'm sure actual mileage may differ but not by much. I'm glad I'm an independent programmer as a few of my full-time MV programmer acquaintenances are now looking at their MV jobs disappearing with each MV system being replaced. Hopefully they are professionally versed in other environments as I am endeavouring as well. My 3 cents Mark Johnson ----- Original Message ----- From: "Charles Barouch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org> Sent: Friday, May 11, 2007 11:24 AM Subject: MV Books (Formerly: [U2] Incubator - News from the board) > Dawn, > What I really need is your plenty potent Professorial powers to get > more colleges willing to teach the course once we have the textbook read. > - Chuck > > Dawn Wolthuis wrote: > > Very cool, Chuck. If you need a reader, you know where I live... (and > > if it happens to be one that someone else started, then I've already > > read some if it) > > > > cheers! --dawn > > > -- > > Charles Barouch ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) > www.KeyAlly.com (718) 762-3884 x 1 > P. O. Box 540957, Queens, NY 11354 > ------- > u2-users mailing list > u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org > To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/ ------- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
