I suspected this sort of training dialog was just beneath the surface. The sad matter of fact is both Wes and Martin are spot on from each of their perspectives. Wes works his tail off (I know because I have been reviewing his new book) and Martin is a master technologist in business. So who makes the better argument? Actually, I think they are both right on and this is what scares me.
1) Quality training by a seasoned professional is expensive and time consuming to design and develop - notice the word design. Being prompted through a PowerPoint presentation is only the tip of the iceberg and you only know this is you have designed and developed training materials. As Wes points out, you first need to know the topic inside out (time, time, time) and then be a great communicator. I have seen my fair share of seasoned pros on a topic who could not explain it to another human in twelve months! Next, you need good tools and the time to learn them. Mastering an effective graphics applications is no walk in the park yet illustrations are effective and necessary. When it comes to lab materials, their cumulative nature throughout a course, and the degree of difficulty that neither runs the class twelve hours a day nor leaves the students twiddling their thumbs is an *art* not a *science*. And the 201 level class that follows the 101 level must not only take all of this into account, but also leverage the prerequisite course itself to minimize mental gear changing and maximize content and context flow. 2) Now to Martin's argument. Joe public looks around (pronounced Google) and expects to find free or dirt cheap videos, presentations including sample code, and emails where they can get free help. I call this theme "you get what you pay for." I have followed a couple JQuery training avenues that fit this mold and after several hours jumping around, I can't hit my ass with both hands! The next JQuery freebie I click on suggests techniques that are in direct opposition to yesterdays free lecture! To paint an anology let's suppose a Struts 2 newbie follows a freebie course at Joe's Training Emporium where Joe has barely figured out how to code himself. But hey, his stuff contains jars enough to compile so he must be an expert! Between the kick-ass Flash graphics his brother-in-law put together and an ass-load of sample code, you now have a web shopping site with JSP files and Action classes that average 385 lines of code in each execute() method -- but it works! You ground your mental web around this bag-of-ass design/code and are later asked to make a couple simple changes to it. Let me speed the analogy up a little so I am not late for work this morning -- after several weeks of spinning and subsequently being fired because you have been revealed as the hack you are, you decide (hey unemployment causes you to do creative things) to actually drop a few bucks on education, either through published material or a formal class. You realize their are tiers and dependency injection. You see that rolling hand-coded JDBC code is no longer in style and that while writing Java code on a web page is possible, it comes back to bite your ass like a coiled up cobra! Great and effective training is expensive and time consuming. My step-father is a single proprietor plumber with one of those cool vans full of tools and we often discuss his investment in his business. If he does not dig deep into his own pocket to keep himself and his tool van sharply honed for his customers, his competitor will put him out of business. Does he like spending money no training and tools? He says its cheaper to pay his dues to remain a professional than it would be to buy a freeezer and convert over to an ice-cream and lollipop vendor. You decide -- professional or a clown driving a musical van. Peace, Scott On Sun, Jun 7, 2009 at 1:54 PM, Martin Gainty <mgai...@hotmail.com> wrote: > > <font size="1">you cannot guarantee something you have no control</font> > scott could you make sure that gets into brochure? > > vielen danke/thanks, > Martin > ______________________________________________ > Verzicht und Vertraulichkeitanmerkung > > Diese Nachricht ist vertraulich. Sollten Sie nicht der vorgesehene > Empfaenger sein, so bitten wir hoeflich um eine Mitteilung. Jede unbefugte > Weiterleitung oder Fertigung einer Kopie ist unzulaessig. Diese Nachricht > dient lediglich dem Austausch von Informationen und entfaltet keine > rechtliche Bindungswirkung. Aufgrund der leichten Manipulierbarkeit von > E-Mails koennen wir keine Haftung fuer den Inhalt uebernehmen. > > > > > > > Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 14:38:22 -0400 > > From: newton.d...@yahoo.com > > To: user@struts.apache.org > > Subject: Re: Training > > > > Martin Gainty wrote: > > > wes-I cant speak for Motorola 64k code (MAC) as i have yet to coded > > > for that platform but it sounds challenging does Struts work on > Motorola > > > > .... > > > > Old Macs used the 68K. Struts works on Java and in app containers, not > > on specific processors. > > > > And coding for the 68K is substantially less challenging than the x86. > > > > > Price: > > > the instructor needs to readily demonstrate if you take my course you > > > will double your output with facts and figures and testimony to > justify.. > > > > That is not possible. You cannot guarantee something you cannot control. > > I can think of several people that I could sit down for a week-long > > course and they'd still be worthless as developers at the end of it. > > > > Dave > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > > To unsubscribe, e-mail: user-unsubscr...@struts.apache.org > > For additional commands, e-mail: user-h...@struts.apache.org > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > Windows Live™ SkyDrive™: Get 25 GB of free online storage. > http://windowslive.com/online/skydrive?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_SD_25GB_062009
