O'Reilly Opens Online Tech School

bl8n8r writes "The popular book author has started the O'Reilly School of Technology which offers online training and certification. "The O'Reilly School of Technology and the University of Illinois have partnered to offer Certificates of Professional Development in information technology and related skills." Among classes offered are Linux/Unix administration, Open Source coding, Java coding, C Programming and others."

Re:Open Source coding?

[Turn-X Alphonse]

Personally I think this could be the most interesting course if done correctly. Rather than "Here's how you code, do this, do that" it could be a mix of coding standards, how to deal with people and how to deal with the bullshit drama in some areas. This would be a useful course for geeks lacking social skills and while they may not learn a huge heap about coding, they could learn a lot of more useful stuff to them in the long run.

Wow, I think this is great...

[writermike]

Some of the drawbacks aside, I am very jazzed about this.

1. I trust O'Reilly.
2. I definitely learn more by reading-and-doing than simply reading.
3. When I try to self-learn, I have trouble dreaming up interesting/challenging projects to complete.
4. I don't necessarily have the time to devote to on-campus learning.
5. I am not interested in attaining a "degree" or a "certificate." I just want to get my hands in technologies that will help me in my job.
6. I don't find the course prices out of line.

I sincerely hope it's successful and they start offering a larger range of the courses.

Re:Open Source coding?

[kuom]

This is what's listed under "Open Source Programming" on the O'reilly site (all of these are $398):

- Learn Perl for CGI Programming
- Linux/Unix 1: The Unix file system
- Learn Object-Oriented Programming using Java
- PHP/SQL 1: Introduction to Database Programming
- Introduction to PHP

I would hardly consider any of these specifically "Open Source Programming". There are plenty of closed-source perl/PHP/Java programs out there. This curriculum sounds more like a mix of web and database programming, mixed in with a little bit of UNIX system administration. I guess "Open Source Programming" is a catchier title.

But again, it's hard to narrow down on what exactly Open Source Programming is... I was hoping that there would be a certification for preparing someone to lead a open source project, and the course materials would cover project management, documentation, software packaging, and bug tracking system.

Big disappointment

[matria]

I got the "web developer" certificate over two years ago; it was a sad waste of $1,700. I found numerous errors in every course, and had to patiently explain the error several times to my "mentor" before he finally realized what was wrong. I wonder if they've ever corrected the errors.

And then the certificate itself is just a drab printout. I would have done better to fire up GIMP and make my own. Very disappointing.