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Interesting report.
Let me preface my comments/thoughts by saying that in "life before
Digital" (if there really was life before Digital) I taught computer
science, mainly programming courses, at the college level.
Our "programming courses", regardless of the language of focus, do NOT
teach programming skills -- they teach language skills. There is a
SIGNIFICANT different. Assuming that a programmer already has a
relatively complete knowledge of the skills that it takes to construct
an application, it should be a relatively simple task for them to take
their current knowledge and apply it to another language. I would even
say that most of a language CAN be learned in one week.
However, to attempt to teaching PROGRAMMING SKILLS in one week would be
folly, at best. The type of skills involved require assimilation
absorbtion time. I do not see how a programming course could possibly
be taught in one week.
Maybe I'm reading between the lines, but I'm slightly concerned that
this survey is causing people with decision making power to shift how
our "programming" courses are being constructed. Let's continue to do
what we do best and deal with the language side of things only.
GJD
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| I agree that the focus of our programming efforts should be language
related. What we are trying to do remains the same, though--Within a
"languages" framework, is there training that VMS programmers need that
we are not currently meeting, and that would fit in a logical sequence
that could be packaged as an additional course offering?
The current VMS programming curriculum looks something like this:
- Vector Proc
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- RMS Structures
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- Parallel Proc
| Apps
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VMS for ----------------- Utlzng ----- Util II
Programmers | | VMS Feat |
| | From <> |
| | - VAXcluster
- Language - | Apps
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- POSIX Programming
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- Internals "String"
If you look at performance of our most popular Utilizing courses, ie.
C, Fortran, Cobol, the numbers are as follows:
U.S. Revenue Worldwide
($K) Students
FY91 FY92 FY90 FY91 FY92
Util C 270 203 735 720 494
Util Fortran 121 100 849 577 462
Util Cobol 91 59 428 393 300
If you look at our most popular Languages courses, ie., C, Fortran,
Cobol, the numbers are as follows:
U.S. Revenue Worldwide
($K) Students
FY91 FY92 FY90 FY91 FY92
C 725 783 2838 2587
Fortran 165 152 497 403
Cobol 166 134 367 298
As for the "backend" courses, apart from RMS, POSIX and the Internals,
the remaining courses are not even taught (UTIL II is taught once in a
while in Europe).
VMS for Programmers was introduced in Q3FY92 in the U.S. and
performance over the last 2 quarters was $274K in Q3 and $360K in Q4.
Thus, given this list of courses and what you know about changes in the
VMS market and emerging trends within a "languages framework", can you
offer ideas for additional training needs.
I thank you for all the help you can provide.
Bill
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| Bill,
Donot think of programming course as VMS courses.
People these days want platform independence. So if we teach some C he
should be able to apply the skills on VMS U*IX or even PC's.
Positioning courses as VMS courses as you here is cutting you off from
future markets, as the figures show.
Think NAS, Think of the applications as leading. People have to plan
for, design and implement and maintain these applications.
Applications talk to APIs. Yes some of the courses above are API's.
APPLICATION programming is the term. VMS programming will be done a lot
but is only a very specialized flavour.
The corporate curricula keep reflecting individual developpers
perceptions, and corporate organization structure.
I doubt however that you will be able to come up with a curriculum
based on a central case study that shows people how things work
together.
This year I did a major project for the a new customer coming from an
IBM background. I did this long track that covered VMS programming
tools, RDB ACMS DECforms etc.
I find corporate materials very hard to use. WHat I did with these
people is develop a simple but complete application.
RDB material use the personnel database, DECforms uses a bank account
example ACMS works with a Motel application.
VMS materials are completely unrelated to any real life situation.
So I had to use my own case study, and use that a flight simulator.
Suppose they trained pilots the way you train programmers. Would dare
to fly. here a CBT on engines. here a TBI about air traffic control,
here is a lecture on instruments, here a video on approach procedures.
NONONONO You put them in a flight simulator and really simulate a
flame-out on the final appraoch. Powerfull this is really an execise
you like to do in a simulator, because of its resistance to failure.
The same way with my CASE Study. here is this small project. ANd it was
run as a real project. The customers manager came in the first day and
we did a bidding session. The students had to sell their project.
then I delieverd a couple of weeks training and we setup development
environments applications and in the end there was the running product.
Small but complete. We did a demonstration for the rest of the EDP
department including the EDP manager, and senior programming staff who
had just that week signed the contract with DEC.
This demo assured them that they had taken a wise decision. they were
amazed to see our automatic testing and release management procedures
etc..
There is no need to sit down and become depressed, but the above
figures just demonstrate what is gonna happen to a company that finds
engineering multiple overlapping unsellable product more interesting
than orientate on the market.
THis is exactly what gets us all those this is the syntax and these are
feature dumps where we need decent training on how to achieve the
customers goals.
Why dont you just start to sell your stuff. You dont even probably know
how much of this stuff is running in here in Europe.
This company make far too much stuff that is just unsellable.
Why dont you sell something before you develop it.
That was all the preaching what can we do?
Lets Find answers to the following questions:
What is the added value of the courses above?
what are the unique selling points?
Why would I take C-programming with DIGITAL if I have other platforms?
WHy is your C or Pascal course better then anyone elses?
Responses from all please.
Nice selling
Johan
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