| Here is the point of view of the Dutch curriculum management.
DECWindows has always been a difficult child in our curriculum.
It changed faces, it behaved abnormally and our original
expectations were disappointed several times.
In more concrete terms: we have tremendous difficulty turning our
DECwindows courses into a profitable enterprise. We see a number
of reasons for this:
1 - Workstations here come bundled with the Intro to DECWindows
CBI.
2 - Many workstations are purchased for application users, that
will receive a turn-key system that logs them straight into
their application.
3 - The technical workstation users usually have extensive DCL
knowledge and will sort things out themselves rather than
sit through a course that basically contains subjects that
are deadly boring to them.
4 - Departments that have purchased a workstations are not always
that rich as traditonal EDP departments, therefore they want
to spend little or no money on training.
Practically speaking it is very difficult for many Training
Centres to have a mixed class of Terminal and Workstation users
for one course. You never know how many to get on the course, and
if you impose a limit on the number of workstations students the
class average is going down badly. For smaller Training Centres
it is not possible invest in large amounts of Hardware to
accommodate all kinds of workstation interface users.
What we want is the following:
- Base the low-level VMS curriculum for technical users (system
managers, operators system programmers) on character cell
terminals. If they do have a workstation they will have to use
the terminal window anyway. A thin Appendix on DECwindows could
be added, but we can well live without.
- Create a low-level course for Workstation users that is one day
long and teaches them how to use the H/W and basic
functionality on DECWindows (menu's, icons, selections etc).
This course should be better than the current CBI which lacks
in depth. We could sell a course like this claiming that it
'forces' the student thoroughly through the material since CBI's
tend to get raced through.
- Create a decent course for those programmers that want to
create an application with built-in DECWindows interface.
- All DECwindows interfacing should be Motif based since I
understand that is going to be our standard.
I hope this clarifies our points well enough.
Rob
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|
Hi There
I think the description of the DW users in reply .1 are
quite accurate. They either know what to do at the
$-prompt, or they do not care. The lowlevel users normally
treat their workstation as a PC. They turn it off, when it
is not needed (shutdown????!), and complains about the
lack of sound. The high level users are interested in
stuff like how to mix Ultrix and VMS workstations. I think
that a important part of any DW-corr. should include MOTIF
and Ultrix. UlTRIX should be an integrated part of any VMS
DW course, as this more and more becomes the reallity of
our customers. I know that this may sound #@&/%&$$ in some
ears, but still isn't it the realliy at the workstation
marked?
Another issue - Have any of you tried to teach windowing
systems? Are you also drawing boxes like mad on the
whiteboard??? May be we should consider some other media
than paper & whiteboard? Wouldn't it be nice with a clear
video that demonstrated all this windowing business, so
you could concentrate on telling the students the inner
workings of DW, instead of doing the mouse-walz?
The only DW courses we have been able to get somewhere are
a Windows overview course, and a tech. DecWindows
programming.
The following are comments to re. .1:
>What we want is the following:
>
>- Base the low-level VMS curriculum for technical users (system
> managers, operators system programmers) on character cell
> terminals. If they do have a workstation they will have to use
> the terminal window anyway. A thin Appendix on DECwindows could
> be added, but we can well live without.
Agree 100%
>- Create a low-level course for Workstation users that is one day
> long and teaches them how to use the H/W and basic
> functionality on DECWindows (menu's, icons, selections etc).
> This course should be better than the current CBI which lacks
> in depth. We could sell a course like this claiming that it
> 'forces' the student thoroughly through the material since CBI's
> tend to get raced through.
We have more or less made one DECWindow overview for
management ourselves, and it sells (not well but it
sellls). The abowe would be very nice to include in customized
courses, but getting endusers to pay for a days windowing
would take some more meat on the course.
>- Create a decent course for those programmers that want to
> create an application with built-in DECWindows interface.
>
Agree 100%
>- All DECwindows interfacing should be Motif based since I
> understand that is going to be our standard.
>
Indeed
Best.
JOSS
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