Weekday or Weekend PHP, Python and Perl classes?
Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2009-03-10 23:27:55 - Graham Ellis
Should we run training courses during the week, or at weekends?Our 'traditional' business has been 80% + employees of companies, government organisations and educational establishments who have wanted weekday courses, with the remaining fifth being independents and contractors who are somewhat flexible, but see weekend courses as a bonus as they're able to learn in what is their customer's non-prime time. Our 'traditional' business has also been in training delegates with a little programming background (at the least) in converting them ... from Cobol to Perl, from VB to PHP or from Matlab to Python.
But we're seeing changes - brought on by dynamic web sites moving from the specialist to the more general, brought on by people having more time and bringing dynamic web sites more into the hobby / club / new career line, and brought on by people with little IT experience taking on the roles formerly occupied by specialists who have now moved (or been moved) on. So there's a need for us to be able to train Learning to program in PHP as well as PHP Programming.
So we've added a "Learning to ..." day in front of most of our programming language courses - where delegates who are new to computer programming (or almost so) can learn some of the fundamental principles and learn them as they relate to their target language. These days mean that newcomers get a flying start - typically with a one-on-one day, helping them get up to speed for the main course, with demonstrations and practicals written to suit their particular needs.
And we have decided to add the extra days - in many cases - directly in front of the main (Monday starting) course, which puts the extra day on a Sunday. There's no 'right' solution here, but we have done it this way because:
a) It leaves the main course on weekdays
b) It reduces the working days that learners are out of their office
c) It avoids blocking the week with sparse training days
d) It allows a continuity from a learning day onto the main course
With 80% of delegates still 'converting', I expect these "Learning to" days to be sporadic in when they run (this is where our guarantee that once you have booked, we won't cancel is so important to you) ... but they are scheduled now for the rest of the year.
Learning to Program in C - 25th March
Learning to Program in Python - 29th March
Learning to Program in PHP - 19th April
Also ... Learning to Program in Lua, Learning to Program in Ruby, Learning to Program in Tcl, Learning to Program in C++ and Learning to Program in Perl ... click on the individual topic for desctiption and dates.
If you're looking to learn but must have weekdays ONLY ... or if you want a weekend ONLY set of sessions ... please email me, and we'll do our best to help.
The illustration that accompanies this article shows our guests at Breakfast - we provide a complete residential course where that's required - and we find that the discussions on the subject that we're teaching start over breakfast and continue into the evening - sometimes mixed with football, politics and other subjects too!