[vox] a course on managing open source...

[Bill Kendrick]

On Mon, Jul 18, 2005 at 10:39:26AM -0700, Sameer Verma wrote:
> I plan on including the popular ones. They will also be using the OpenCD 
> as a starter.

Woo!  Tux Paint!  ;^)

BTW, in case you missed my other post (I forget if it was even on this list),
the latest TheOpenCD (v.3.0 that was released this month) also acts as
a mini-live-CD of Ubuntu.  I haven't tested that out, but otherwise, it looks
like quite a slick disc.

Other discs, such as GNUWin II, are a little more packed with software
(OSS for Windows), however the future of GNUWin is kind of up in the air.
(I don't know if it's still maintained... I just remember hearing that the
main/original maintainer(s) decided to stop a number of months back.)


<snip>
> :-) Point well taken. It is a tragedy when schools use Access to teach 
> databases, because the "application" saps away all the abstracted 
> knowledge, and instead lead the student into a step-by-step hand-holding 
> exercise. Incidentally, we do have an entire course in database 
> concepts, so that's taken care of.

I took two week-long 'classes' at WorldCom, way way back.  Dozens of us
took the class.  It was on some commercial reporting tool with a nice
MS Windows GUI.  I learned nothing, except to follow the instructions,
step-by-step, in the class handouts.

  1. Click this
  2. Type that
  3. Click this other thing

I mean, _seriously_.  "Teach the frickin' concepts, you idiots!"
Oh, sorry... ranting. :^)

I think two people went on to actually _use_ the tool in any kind of
production way, 6 or 8 months later.  No doubt they had to actually sit
down and _learn_ the thing at that point.  (Even if it were a week later,
there was NO way the 2 weeks of classes could have taught enough for someone
to actually know how to use the damned thing, beyond duplicating their
precise, extremely basic examples...)


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