I recently have had the pleasure of working with some very bright developers who are starting their own developer-to-developer education (being able to shoulder surf as they acquire meeting space, computer equipment, etc. has been fun). In the process they threw it out to me that if I wanted to hold some classes or sessions there I'd be more than welcome.

I know that economy has meant that local companies are less inclined to put their devs on a plane, put them in a hotel, and have them keep their skills current; the expense just doesn't makes sense. However, if we could do a local course it would be much more cost effective for everybody involved.

If we could get a certified instructor in for a day or two course, what would you want offered? What are the holes you'd like to see filled in your org? And, if you have a specific course in mind, who would you want to see teach it?

Matthew Reinbold
Creative Principal, Vox Pop Design, http://voxpopdesign.c...

Random training ideas:

GUI/Presentation topics
Advanced CSS
jQuery
AJAX
Internationalization (dealing with multiple languages in translation files, JavaScript messages, databases, etc.)

Developer Environment topics
Source control
GUI Testing with Selenium
Unit Testing with cfSpec, MXUnit, or similar
Tying it all together with ANT
Bug/Project tracking

Hands-on
Hibernate ORM
ColdBox Framework
AIR
Flex

Is there a possibility for RIA Dev Shed this year? Or would this replace it?

While the RIA Dev Shed was a success its very hard to make an event of that size cost effective. If I remember correctly, by the time I worked out a per hour rate for what was made it was something like $3-$4 an hour; that's not bad when you have nothing else going on. However, when it comes to either doing client work or mounting another conference I do hesitate.

I was thinking that one thing we could do is something smaller (like a single instructor) but go for an entire day on one topic (so we get depth). Pehaps we setup a series of these - in May its a day of Flex training, then in June its a boot camp on better application testing (from cfSpec, Selenium, ANT, etc). Breaking it up like that would be easier to plan for and probably give more depth.

Those are some great course ideas. Anyone else have thoughts?

Matthew Reinbold
Creative Principal, Vox Pop Design, http://voxpopdesign.c...

I'd be interested in intermediate or advanced jQuery, AJAX application architectures, and any of those DET topics Mel listed except maybe source control.

But I'd be VERY interested in Air 2, ColdBox, Facebook, mobile development if it focused on Adobe tech, Internationalization, and any ColdFusion 9 specific material.

All good topics.

To add to it, how would you rank a day long "ColdFusion Security Bootcamp" (for building more secure, less hackable apps) amongst the other topics?

Matthew Reinbold
Creative Principal, Vox Pop Design, http://voxpopdesign.c...

Mi explicit order of interest ( most to less ):

Air 2
ColdFusion 9
jQuery/AJAX ( after doing some fancier things w/ jQuery today my interest is rekindled )
Facebook and Mashing Upping in gen.
CFBuilder now that it's usable?
Flex 4
ColdBox
Load testing ( maybe w/ some of the free Java tools )
Security
ColdFusion Enterprise-specific features
Mobile
Intro to Ant ( w/ CF-specific examples )
Internationalization
Testing ( unit and GUI )

All good topics.

To add to it, how would you rank a day long "ColdFusion Security Bootcamp" (for building more secure, less hackable apps) amongst the other topics?

Matthew Reinbold
Creative Principal, Vox Pop Design, http://voxpopdesign.c...

I would be attend a "ColdFusion Security Bootcamp". Sounds like an interesting topic.

-Neil

Matthew,

Here's my $0.02. Take with 1 grain of salt.

The first time I went to MAX was in 2003. I have been back approximately every other year since. At MAX, I usually focus on ColdFusion training. Additionally, I have been a member of the ColdFusion usergroup for about 5 years (+/-), and have been developing ColdFusion Apps for 10 years.

At this point I feel that I have covered all (or almost all) of the standard beginner, intermediate, and advanced ColdFusion training topics available. Further ColdFusion training sessions aren't going to drastically broaden my horizons, or expose me to features that I haven't already been exposed to. More training would just be more for more's sake.

Recently I have been thinking that if I go to MAX again, I am going to try to start broadening my horizons. This means very few ColdFusion classes, in favor of classes and hands-on sessions on other stuff like:

• How to use the pagination features in Fireworks to slap together very quick wireframes / prototypes
  
• How to properly use Photoshop well
  
• Classes on the other CS4 products like Adobe Illustrator. I have had Illustrator for about 6 years and have never used it. Recently watched about 1 hours of an 8 hours Lynda.com training, and Illustrator is now a favorite tool for generating some kinds of icons and vector graphics.
  

Some vendor neutral topics that would interest me, especially for the type of in-depth scenario you are talking about include:

• Basic to intermediate graphic design techniques
  
• How to design good human interfaces
  
• advanced JavaScripting (for instance how to use JSON well, and the quasi-object-oriented aspects of JavaScript, and an in-depth deconstruction of the Document Object Model)
  
• An in-depth training on how to use CSS well.
  

I realize that my comments don't necessarily represent the views of the other group members. However, when I think back to the last RIA Dev Shed that you did, I don't remember any of the ColdFusion courses. On the other hand, I do feel like the recorded course by the Yahoo! engineer (the guy that created YSlow) really gave me a lot to think about, and introduced me to some very important concepts. Also, one of the best SLCFUG user group meetings in memory was not on ColdFusion, but was by the guy who flew in to talk about bullet proof design, (and taught some fundamental design principles like, "Good design doesn't ask the question 'What can I add', but asks the question 'Is there anything I can take away?' ")

I hope that this helps,

-Neil

Another course that I would like to see (that many of us developers should take) is:

Helping I.T. people communicate effectively with human beings -- especially with management types, users, etc.

Some items to cover would include:

• The thesis statement: Your best friend. Always start with this.
  
• Being concise and staying on topic.
  
• Understanding the management / business perspective
  

In fact, the whole course could just be summed up like this:

First do number 3. Then do number 1. Follow number 1 with a few supporting statements that adhere to number 2. Make sure that your statements support and relate directly to what you said in number 1. The end.

Ok, so while I am being a little bit tongue-in-cheek, I actually would go to a course on this topic. Us left-brain computer types can often use a little help in this area.

-Neil

David mentioned some topics that would interest him. I would like to second the following:

jQuery/AJAX ( after doing some fancier things w/ jQuery today my interest is rekindled )
Load testing ( maybe w/ some of the free Java tools )
Security
ColdFusion Enterprise-specific features
Mobile
Intro to Ant ( w/ CF-specific examples )
Testing ( unit and GUI )

Especially: jQuery, Intro to Ant, and unit/GUI testing