What training would prove to be worth while?
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Well I am thinking about a Master's degree in either Information Security or Computer Science. But Information Security won't help me do my job better. My company will pay for more training, not necessarily another degree. I want to make sure that the training I do get is complimentary and practical for what I am doing now.
B Rizzle E TTizzle Nemizzle
In my experience most "training" is a joke in the business world. If you have never sat through a company sponsored 3 day seminar where you know less having been through it you will. Computer Science is not only practical for a developer but very important.
Need a C# Consultant? I'm available.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. -- Ernest Hemingway -
Well I am thinking about a Master's degree in either Information Security or Computer Science. But Information Security won't help me do my job better. My company will pay for more training, not necessarily another degree. I want to make sure that the training I do get is complimentary and practical for what I am doing now.
B Rizzle E TTizzle Nemizzle
bn3m wrote:
I want to make sure that the training I do get is complimentary and practical for what I am doing now.
This is all good, but is it what YOU want to do for the rest of your life ? Choose something you like, and do it.
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In my experience most "training" is a joke in the business world. If you have never sat through a company sponsored 3 day seminar where you know less having been through it you will. Computer Science is not only practical for a developer but very important.
Need a C# Consultant? I'm available.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. -- Ernest HemingwayPerhaps a course in juggling. Useful if you get a job at Pixar or Microsoft, where they seem to revel in being 3 years old.
Deja View - the feeling that you've seen this post before.
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Well I am thinking about a Master's degree in either Information Security or Computer Science. But Information Security won't help me do my job better. My company will pay for more training, not necessarily another degree. I want to make sure that the training I do get is complimentary and practical for what I am doing now.
B Rizzle E TTizzle Nemizzle
bn3m wrote:
But Information Security won't help me do my job better.
Why not? In this day and age, information security is of utmost importance!
-- Kein Mitleid Für Die Mehrheit
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bn3m wrote:
I want to make sure that the training I do get is complimentary and practical for what I am doing now.
This is all good, but is it what YOU want to do for the rest of your life ? Choose something you like, and do it.
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I've already gotten my BS in Computer Information Systems. I have a full-time developer job and my company is willing to pay for more training if it will help me do my job better. My main development environment is Visual Studio 2003, 2005 and I mostly develop in C# .NET. I have been as this job for more than a year so I don't have years of experience. What kind of training will prove to be worthwhile? I've read a lot that certifications are becoming less and less important to companies. Are developer conferences good to attend? I've never been to one. Does any one have any other suggestions?
Training to develop hardware knowledge would complement your software skills nicely, and often make the difference between a brilliant developer and an 'also ran' programmer. Management training, expecially finance and project management, would also be useful, because if you're any good at what you do they're eventually going to muscle you out of doing and into leading.
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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I've already gotten my BS in Computer Information Systems. I have a full-time developer job and my company is willing to pay for more training if it will help me do my job better. My main development environment is Visual Studio 2003, 2005 and I mostly develop in C# .NET. I have been as this job for more than a year so I don't have years of experience. What kind of training will prove to be worthwhile? I've read a lot that certifications are becoming less and less important to companies. Are developer conferences good to attend? I've never been to one. Does any one have any other suggestions?
For long-term value added to capabilities in your chosen profession, getting Computer Science education is highly worthwhile. I've worked with a lot of "mustangs" (a term I borrowed from the military) by which I mean programmers who learned on the job and who never took any coursework in computer sciences, and the biggest criticism I have of them is that they don't understand why the APIs and frameworks they use work the way they do, so sometimes what they produce is vastly inefficient even though the right results are achieved in other respects. Short-term, though, if you're using relatively up-to-date development systems, going to conferences that offer tutorials in advanced topics will get you knowledge that may be hard to acquire otherwise. Using those, as well as online tutorials, will give you the most bang for the buck in the short term.
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I'm not here to be helpful.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001 -
I'm not here to be helpful.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001 -
For long-term value added to capabilities in your chosen profession, getting Computer Science education is highly worthwhile. I've worked with a lot of "mustangs" (a term I borrowed from the military) by which I mean programmers who learned on the job and who never took any coursework in computer sciences, and the biggest criticism I have of them is that they don't understand why the APIs and frameworks they use work the way they do, so sometimes what they produce is vastly inefficient even though the right results are achieved in other respects. Short-term, though, if you're using relatively up-to-date development systems, going to conferences that offer tutorials in advanced topics will get you knowledge that may be hard to acquire otherwise. Using those, as well as online tutorials, will give you the most bang for the buck in the short term.
cpkilekofp wrote:
and the biggest criticism I have of them is that they don't understand why the APIs and frameworks they use work the way they do
That's odd because I've found exactly the opposite. Most self-taught engineers I've worked with understand the APIs and frameworks quite well, while most CS majors I've worked don't have a damn clue.
Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke
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I've already gotten my BS in Computer Information Systems. I have a full-time developer job and my company is willing to pay for more training if it will help me do my job better. My main development environment is Visual Studio 2003, 2005 and I mostly develop in C# .NET. I have been as this job for more than a year so I don't have years of experience. What kind of training will prove to be worthwhile? I've read a lot that certifications are becoming less and less important to companies. Are developer conferences good to attend? I've never been to one. Does any one have any other suggestions?
bn3m wrote:
Are developer conferences good to attend? I've never been to one. Does any one have any other suggestions?
If you have never been to one, chances are they are good for you to attend. You will learn from others' experience not just your own. I have attended about 5 Siggraph conferences, one on interactive human interfacing with computers, quite a few for my job specialty and the game developers conference which I talked work into paying for. I was going to return to the latter since I came back with more information from the GDC than any other convention. Eventually any convention will loose interest because much of it is repeat, and very little new from the previous one, then you can cut down or rotate every few years so that the costs are less. But there is a lot to learn IF you are willing to gleam it from the conference. It also depends on the conference, learn ahead of time what will be there, who will speak, what is scheduled and what you want and alternatives if the speaker begins heading in a direction you do not find useful, walk out and grab and alternative, or listen and learn the different direction your choice.
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb) John Andrew Holmes "It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others."
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I've already gotten my BS in Computer Information Systems. I have a full-time developer job and my company is willing to pay for more training if it will help me do my job better. My main development environment is Visual Studio 2003, 2005 and I mostly develop in C# .NET. I have been as this job for more than a year so I don't have years of experience. What kind of training will prove to be worthwhile? I've read a lot that certifications are becoming less and less important to companies. Are developer conferences good to attend? I've never been to one. Does any one have any other suggestions?
SQL Many things revolve around database technology.
Member number three million seven hundred seventy two thousand nine hundred sixty three
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For long-term value added to capabilities in your chosen profession, getting Computer Science education is highly worthwhile. I've worked with a lot of "mustangs" (a term I borrowed from the military) by which I mean programmers who learned on the job and who never took any coursework in computer sciences, and the biggest criticism I have of them is that they don't understand why the APIs and frameworks they use work the way they do, so sometimes what they produce is vastly inefficient even though the right results are achieved in other respects. Short-term, though, if you're using relatively up-to-date development systems, going to conferences that offer tutorials in advanced topics will get you knowledge that may be hard to acquire otherwise. Using those, as well as online tutorials, will give you the most bang for the buck in the short term.
cpkilekofp wrote:
I've worked with a lot of "mustangs" (a term I borrowed from the military) by which I mean programmers who learned on the job and who never took any coursework in computer sciences, and the biggest criticism I have of them is that they don't understand why the APIs and frameworks they use work the way they do, so sometimes what they produce is vastly inefficient even though the right results are achieved in other respects.
I would also disagree. Mustangs I can legally use given my line of work, are the non-team members, the ones that hold the opinion regardless of what you say. We have a CS mustang at work. He knows nothing of the APIs and frameworks, things Java is the best language in the world, and his largest complaint about me is that I parallel program when he was taught to MUTEX the hell out of everything therefore I am programming wrong. I also refuse to let him drop Windows support. We do Linux, and Windows. His largest complaint with the company is that we still buy M$. He is a mustang. I tried to explain why an STL container is wrong by how it works inside. He stopped me, it is irrelevant how it works inside, that was the point of STL that we didn't have to know how. So this "self taught" (mustang as you think), wants to know how things work, I want to push technology to multi-threading and parallel, GPU use. His job, as a CS is to prevent all of that!
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb) John Andrew Holmes "It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others."
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cpkilekofp wrote:
and the biggest criticism I have of them is that they don't understand why the APIs and frameworks they use work the way they do
That's odd because I've found exactly the opposite. Most self-taught engineers I've worked with understand the APIs and frameworks quite well, while most CS majors I've worked don't have a damn clue.
Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke
Joe Woodbury wrote:
cpkilekofp wrote: and the biggest criticism I have of them is that they don't understand why the APIs and frameworks they use work the way they do That's odd because I've found exactly the opposite. Most self-taught engineers I've worked with understand the APIs and frameworks quite well, while most CS majors I've worked don't have a damn clue.
You have been fortunate. Also, many such have self-educated in computer science. It's the ones who haven't who are the problem.
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I've already gotten my BS in Computer Information Systems. I have a full-time developer job and my company is willing to pay for more training if it will help me do my job better. My main development environment is Visual Studio 2003, 2005 and I mostly develop in C# .NET. I have been as this job for more than a year so I don't have years of experience. What kind of training will prove to be worthwhile? I've read a lot that certifications are becoming less and less important to companies. Are developer conferences good to attend? I've never been to one. Does any one have any other suggestions?
Courses related to the discipline you're developing software for. If it's GIS related, learn more about GIS fundamentals, standards etc. If it's records management related, learn more about records management fundamentals, standards etc. And so on. In other words, pick courses that will give you a better understanding of the problems you'll use your IT skills to solve. Cheers, Drew.
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I've already gotten my BS in Computer Information Systems. I have a full-time developer job and my company is willing to pay for more training if it will help me do my job better. My main development environment is Visual Studio 2003, 2005 and I mostly develop in C# .NET. I have been as this job for more than a year so I don't have years of experience. What kind of training will prove to be worthwhile? I've read a lot that certifications are becoming less and less important to companies. Are developer conferences good to attend? I've never been to one. Does any one have any other suggestions?
bn3m wrote:
Are developer conferences good to attend?
Yes, those can be good. Sometimes they give out really cool door prizes :)
"The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer "Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon "Not only do you continue to babble nonsense, you can't even correctly remember the nonsense you babbled just minutes ago." - Rob Graham
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Actually, kick-boxing probably would help you do your job better. ;P As would any exercise - unless you already do exercise... Kickboxing is good fun though... planning to get back to it time permitting.
"For fifty bucks I'd put my face in their soup and blow." - George Costanza
CP article: SmartPager - a Flickr-style pager control with go-to-page popup layer.
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Actually, kick-boxing probably would help you do your job better. ;P As would any exercise - unless you already do exercise... Kickboxing is good fun though... planning to get back to it time permitting.
"For fifty bucks I'd put my face in their soup and blow." - George Costanza
CP article: SmartPager - a Flickr-style pager control with go-to-page popup layer.
I only suggested it so that if Chuck Norris ever came by his office to kick everyone's ass, at least one person there would put up something that looked like a fight before he was killed.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001 -
I've already gotten my BS in Computer Information Systems. I have a full-time developer job and my company is willing to pay for more training if it will help me do my job better. My main development environment is Visual Studio 2003, 2005 and I mostly develop in C# .NET. I have been as this job for more than a year so I don't have years of experience. What kind of training will prove to be worthwhile? I've read a lot that certifications are becoming less and less important to companies. Are developer conferences good to attend? I've never been to one. Does any one have any other suggestions?
30-60 minutes of aerobic exercise, three times a week. I run and bicycle myself. Weight training is good too, on alternate days from the aerobic stuff.
Software Zen:
delete this;
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Kick-boxing.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001All right John! I'm glad someone else reacted the way I did (I saw your post after I made mine).
Software Zen:
delete this;
Fold With Us![^]
