A couple of data points about Perl training in London.
From these data items I extrapolate that there is a demand for Perl training in London, but that currently no-one is doing much to fulfill that demand.
I smell a business plan forming...
I'm very happy you've managed to make this happen. Simon's initial prodding on this subject was great and the fact that it's actually happening is fantastic. I'm very curious to know what the aftermath will be.
Re:Thank you!
davorg on 2007-05-08T08:56:28
I really can't take much credit for this. The original idea was Simon's and you spent a lot of time trying to get it organised. Richard Jolly and Jonathan Tweed at the BBC did a lot of work too.
All I've done so far is to promote it a bit. Now my part starts. I need to a) write the course and b) present it.
And, yes, like you I'm really interesting in seeing what happens next.
Re:Thank you!
davorg on 2007-05-08T10:13:30
s/interesting/interested/;
In the registration do you ask where people live? I don't doubt there is a large demand for Perl training in London and the surrounding areas, and I think the Teach-In is an excellent idea and hope goes well. However, I'd be intrigued to find out if there are any "students" that are travelling from elsewhere in the UK.
I was hoping that OpenAdvantage would take some interest in Perl training, but they opted to teach PHP and a bit of Python. They asked me some time ago to do a Perl introduction, but they never got back to me to arrange dates. It would be encouranging to see that these Teach-In's would have a similar demand in Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh and other cities across the UK. It might encourage OpenAdvantage, or other training centres, to add Perl training to their course lists.
Perhaps you can do a tour next year
Re:Just London?
davorg on 2007-05-08T11:34:18
You're absolutely right, of course. I should have said that there's a demand for Perl courses from people who are prepared to travel to London.
Perhaps you can do a tour next year;^) I'd be very happy to do a similar thing in other UK (or even European) cities. But the financial side is so much easier when I can travel using my Oystercard and sleep in my own bed
:-) I should mention that I intend to make the slides for this course available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK licence, so there will be nothing to stop other people doing the same thing in their own city.
But I'd love to be able to spend next year traveling round Europe giving Perl training courses!
Re:Just London?
ajt on 2007-05-08T20:36:40
It may be possible to make a reasonably practical approach for trainers visiting LUGs,
.PM groups and such. If it's planned in advance, various groups I'm sure are big enough to host an event that could be filled and would be within a reasonable days travel of London. I know the very basic Perl talk I gave at my LUG had over a dozen people in and if it had be publicised and held at a joint LUG event we could have got more people involved. One thing I would suggest is to video the talk and make it downloadable as well as the slides. They have proved very popular at our LUG and are I think a very valuable asset.
I know it's no fun for the speaker, but it's easier and cheaper to move one speaker about that to try and concentrate 50 people into one spot. There are a lot of us just outside of London you can't get to London all that often, but can get to closer-to-home events. I'm sure there are groups further afield that can't/don't go to London at all.
I' sort of rambling but if it's possible to herd cats a little we can achieve so much...
Re:Just London?
barbie on 2007-05-11T07:10:33
That's part of the reason I decided to do a speaking tour this year for The Birmingham Perl Mongers World Tour. Most events have been really well attended. Oddly enough the lowest attendence was a Perl Monger group. All the LUGs have been very responsive and we've even got a couple of new recruits to Birmingham.pm as a result
:)
