SPUG: Summary: UW Certificate program in PERL

Joel Grow largest at largest.org
Fri Jun 30 01:11:56 CDT 2000


On Wed, 28 Jun 2000, Tim Maher/CONSULTIX wrote:

> On Wed, Jun 28, 2000 at 04:28:15PM -0700, Gareth Beale wrote:
> > 
> > A few weeks ago I asked for feedback from anyone with any exposure to the
> > above subject line. A few responses have trickled in over the weeks, and
> > I thought I would summarise to the list.
> > 
> (snip)
> > not to mention the commute in my case. The location is somewhere on 4th. This
> > may be the the same lab that Tim used for one of his classes last year. That
> > was a UW facility wasn't it Tim?
> 
> (snip)
>  
> > Gareth
> > 
> > Gareth Beale (425) 865-5375 #  e-mail:
> > The Boeing Company          #  gareth.beale at boeing.com
> > P.O. Box 3707, MC 7J-04     #  
> > Seattle, Wa. 98124-2207     #  fax: (425) 865-2221
> > 
> 
> That's right.  But because several students complained about the lab
> rules, which prohibited bringing any food or drink into the computer area,
> and the UW doubled my rent to boot, we don't hold classes there anymore.

[snip]
> > I'm still interested in any personal experiences with the program if anyone 
> > still has any feedback they haven't voiced yet.
> 
> Spugster "largest at largest.org" is the current leader of this program, so
> maybe he can tell us more!
> 
> -Tim
> *========================================================================*
> | Dr. Tim Maher, CEO, Consultix       (206) 781-UNIX/8649;  ask for FAX# | 
> | Email: tim at consultix-inc.com        Web: http://www.consultix-inc.com  |
> | CLASSES:  8/14: UNIX Fund.  8/21: Shell & Utilities  9/11: Perl + Mods |
> | DAMIAN CONWAY Seminars;  Adv. OO Perl: 7/6,  Parsing with Modules: 7/7 |
> *========================================================================*


I've been trying to stay on the sidelines on this one, since I'm heavily
involved in the UW program, and our esteemed SPUG leader runs a different
(I don't want to say competing) program.  :-)

Seriously though, I've heard fantastic things about the Consultix courses,
and Tim is really knowledgeable.  If you're looking for an on-site course,
or a course which takes place over several full days, talk to Tim right
away.  If you're looking for a once/week Perl learning format over the
course of an academic year, with quizes and a final project, then the UW
program is just for you.  Both will be challenging and a lot of fun, and
you'll learn a lot either way.  I'm going to go out on a limb and say that
the UW course will give you more in-depth exposure to the topics, but only
because we have more time in which to do it.

I'm not sure what exactly you'd like answered about the UW course, so I'll
sort of ramble for a bit.  (the info on the UW website is a bit out of
date.  They're printing new brochures and I'm told the site will be
updated very soon)

We try to be as OS-agnostic as possible.  I come from a Unix Perl
background, and I found that 99% of my scripts ported directly to Win32
without changing a thing.  I've had Mac students and they had no problems
at all.

We try to really emphasize the fundamentals and create projects that build
on previous knowledge, slowly adding to your programming bag of tricks.
After the students are well-grounded in the basics, we move into complex
data structures, OO Perl programming, databases, and CGI programming.  
The goal by the end of the class is for the students to build a fully
functioning database-driven website (with customer login, shopping cart,
employee management, back-end reporting, etc) for Winefred, our fictional
veterinarian friend who runs her own animal business.

We also take time to incorporate special topics the students are
interested in. Past examples of this include ADO/OLE, shared memory and
socket/network programming, and Perl/Tk.

Regarding the classroom--I've been told by UW that the class will be held
in a new laptop lab downtown (on 4th and something... I don't have the
exact address with me here at home).  It sounds like a very nice facility
from how it was described to me.  I don't know about the no-food rule, but
the computers in the lab will be the student's laptop, so I can't see UW
caring about that.  (I almost always have some sort of snack with me when
I'm programming)

Someone mentioned bad parking--in my experience, parking downtown isn't
very difficult after 5:30 or so.

I'll stop here.  Feel free to contact me privately if you have questions.  
I'd be glad to provide email addresses of UW Perl alums so you could get
their opinion.  It's a fun class, and I think you'll enjoy it!

Thanks

Joel


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