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Parlez-vous Python?
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that the market for night classes and online instruction in programming and Web construction is booming, as those jumping on board say they are preparing for a future in which the Internet is the foundation for entertainment, education and nearly everything else. Knowing how the digital pieces fit together will be crucial to ensuring that they are not left in the dark ages. 'Inasmuch as you need to know how to read English, you need to have some understanding of the code that builds the Web,' says Sarah Henry, 39, an investment manager who took several classes, including some in HTML, the basic language of the Web, and WordPress, a blogging service. 'I'm not going to sit here and say that I can crank out a site today, but I can look at basic code and understand it. I understand how these languages function within the Internet.' The blooming interest in programming is part of a national trend of more people moving toward technical fields. 'To be successful in the modern world, regardless of your occupation, requires a fluency in computers,' says Peter Harsha. 'It is more than knowing how to use Word or Excel but how to use a computer to solve problems.' However seasoned programmers say learning how to adjust the layout of a Web page is one thing, but picking up the skills required to develop a sophisticated online service or mobile application is an entirely different challenge that cannot be acquired by casual use for a few hours at night and on the weekends."
Today is the last day to register for my beginner's Ruby and Rails class at 3rd Ward. It's five Tuesday nights from 7-10 beginning on April 3.
http://www.3rdward.com/3rdwardclasses/ruby-on-rails.html
It's very aggressively priced, at $295 for 15 instruction hours.
The focus of the class is on practical techniques for getting started with Rails and making the best use of your time and the newest, best tools. No computing experience is necessary. The instruction will focus on OSX, but a certain level of support for other OSes is available.
At least not with the damned indenting rules.
Remember friends don't let beginner programmer pull their hair our on the braindead trainwreck of Python.
By they time they work out what bits don't work between Python 2 and 3, they finally move onto Perl or Ruby and realise how much better it could have been.