The Free Love-, er, Teach-In

[michael]

On Mon, 12 Mar 2007, london.pm-request at london.pm.org wrote:
> 
>> Competent Perl programmers are already quite well catered for in
<snip>
> Many of those require some knowledge of/assimilation into the Perl
> community.  It's been my experience that most Perl programmers are not
> involved in the Perl community.  This is part of the reason why such
> classes would be useful.  The hard part then becomes figuring out how
> to let those programmers know about this.

Perhaps a teach in is not quote the right tool to get to 'outsiders'...

I suspect the normal excuce for not going would be:-

"I'm soooo busy, I just don't have time to spend a whole day studying what I 
know already" along with the there is the subconscious suspicion that if its 
free it can't be worth anything...

Perhaps a series of Lunch hour lectures (preferably with tea and muffins 
afterwards or other tempting event:-) would draw in more outsiders...
the time cost of attendence is much lower.

>> I'd also question if it is possible to convert competent Perl
>> programmers into top-notch programmers in one day.
> 
> Agreed, but it's amazing how many of the things you need to know to be
> competent are really very simple.

Its easy to suggest when one can't really do (I'm based in Cambridge
which puts a bit of a crimp on my London activities) but...

Perhaps a teach in is not the right tool to teach  Advanced perl, 'lunch hour 
lectures series' may be better than a single intensive day:-

* Its easyer to take in a single talk
* A lecture series has a chance to develop a reputation by word of mouth
   perhaps even extending to the real world
* Time cost of attendance is much lower making it easyer to participate
* It may be easyer to organize (tea and muffins are an optional extra
   and doing a Google video is a much smaller task (I can volenteer to
   do that))
* There is the oppotunity to set homework and display the best answers
   next lecture


--
Michael
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Michael John Lush PhD			Tel:44-20-7679-5027
Nomenclature Bioinformatician		Fax:44-20-7387-3496
HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee	Email:  nome at galton.ucl.ac.uk
The Galton Laboratory
University College London, UK
URL: http://www.gene.ucl.ac.uk/nomenclature/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~