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As information begins to flow freely, it's monetary value approaches $0. Forgive my insensitivity- but based on that sentiment the content of this course is wor

As information begins to flow freely, it's monetary value approaches $0. Forgive my insensitivity- but based on that sentiment the content of this course is worth relatively nothing. I am of course not speaking towards the instructors ability, time, or guidance. Granted, $350 is a steal compared to formal education; but if teaching 20 people how to AJAX is worth upwards of $8,000... I need to move on to teaching.

ericlavigne 16y ago
The instructor of this course has also written an excellent book, jQuery Fundamentals, and I am convinced that she would be an excellent instructor as well. The $350 seems steep to me as well, but I might be willing to pay it if I expected jQuery to be my main development tool. (I'm more interested in Clojure, and would have gladly paid the $1k in expenses to attend the Clojure Conj if my employer hadn't offered to cover it. http://clojure-conj.org/ http://clojure-conj.org/ That was just a two-day event, rather than a whole month of training.)
jeffreymcmanus 16y ago
The course is a month long. How much do you bill each month?
- catshirt 16y ago
  Like I said- if the time spent maintaining this course (even considering there might "probably" be office hours) is worth that much money, I need to consider teaching. I don't doubt the instructor of this course in particular is capable of maintaining 4 of these courses in a month. More arguably: this information is information that is not only documented thousands of times- but there are even plenty of human resource available for free as well (consider stackoverflow). I'm certainly not suggesting Rebecca value her time at nothing. But of all professions, I'd expect programming to be the first of which you can truly learn for free. I don't mean to be argumentative, I am just being idealistic.
  - jeffreymcmanus 16y ago
    Not at all, I kinda see where you're coming from. But the flaw in your reasoning is that we're not yet at the point where you can jack the kung fu program into Neo's cerebral cortex like they did in the Matrix. You can actually learn anything for free today -- assuming that your time is worthless. You might not be able to learn it well or very quickly, but you can certainly learn it for free. CodeLesson's biggest competitor is Google. Google can get you all the information you need about how to do pretty much anything -- bake a soufflé, sire a baby, write a compiler. But it won't tell you where to look for the information you want, it won't tell you exactly what you don't yet know, it won't evaluate your work, it won't tell you when you've learned enough to do what you want, and it won't validate what you've learned. That's where a human instructor comes in. If you think that paying to take a course is expensive, then great -- read the online text for free and get what you can out of that. That's what it's there for. But taking a class is really about getting access to the knowledge and experience of an instructor. That's what people pay for.
rmurphey3 16y ago
1) Let's do some math here. First, as an instructor I don't get to keep all of the revenue (nor should I -- CodeLesson is providing value here as well, for which I am grateful). Second, I will pay approximately 40% in regular and self-employment taxes on my portion of the revenue. My take-home pay for this class, assuming 20 students, will be nowhere even close to $8,000. In exchange for that money, I will spend dozens of hours preparing the content, leading the class, and working with students. This is not a complaint, just a statement of fact. 2) The feedback I have received from students in past classes is that they have found the classes anything but worthless. If you learn well by looking things up on Google, more power to you -- no one's making you take the class. On the other hand, plenty of people benefit from a more guided approach that includes the one-on-one attention of an instructor. Such an approach may expose them to valuable information they didn't know they didn't know, or it may let them make a connection that they wouldn't have arrived at for months or years otherwise. 3) While you may not value training from a subject matter expert, plenty of people do. Companies routinely pay hundreds of dollars per student per day for in-person, on-site training. The cost of the training is expensive; I can only assume that companies consider that cost -- thousands of dollars per day -- quite reasonable relative to the cost of poorly written, unmaintainable code. 4) Finally, if you would like to try your hand at leading trainings for thousands of dollars a day, do it! To find students/clients, expect to spend the next several months traveling to and speaking at conferences; writing detailed, researched blog posts; helping out in support channels; networking at local and regional events; and maybe writing a book or two -- all for little or no money, and perhaps even at a cost to you. Point being: there's a lot more work that goes into becoming someone capable of leading a training than just showing up and cashing a check.

ericlavigne 16y ago

The instructor of this course has also written an excellent book, jQuery Fundamentals, and I am convinced that she would be an excellent instructor as well. The $350 seems steep to me as well, but I might be willing to pay it if I expected jQuery to be my main development tool. (I'm more interested in Clojure, and would have gladly paid the $1k in expenses to attend the Clojure Conj if my employer hadn't offered to cover it. http://clojure-conj.org/ http://clojure-conj.org/ That was just a two-day event, rather than a whole month of training.)

jeffreymcmanus 16y ago

The course is a month long. How much do you bill each month?

catshirt 16y ago
Like I said- if the time spent maintaining this course (even considering there might "probably" be office hours) is worth that much money, I need to consider teaching. I don't doubt the instructor of this course in particular is capable of maintaining 4 of these courses in a month. More arguably: this information is information that is not only documented thousands of times- but there are even plenty of human resource available for free as well (consider stackoverflow). I'm certainly not suggesting Rebecca value her time at nothing. But of all professions, I'd expect programming to be the first of which you can truly learn for free. I don't mean to be argumentative, I am just being idealistic.
- jeffreymcmanus 16y ago
  Not at all, I kinda see where you're coming from. But the flaw in your reasoning is that we're not yet at the point where you can jack the kung fu program into Neo's cerebral cortex like they did in the Matrix. You can actually learn anything for free today -- assuming that your time is worthless. You might not be able to learn it well or very quickly, but you can certainly learn it for free. CodeLesson's biggest competitor is Google. Google can get you all the information you need about how to do pretty much anything -- bake a soufflé, sire a baby, write a compiler. But it won't tell you where to look for the information you want, it won't tell you exactly what you don't yet know, it won't evaluate your work, it won't tell you when you've learned enough to do what you want, and it won't validate what you've learned. That's where a human instructor comes in. If you think that paying to take a course is expensive, then great -- read the online text for free and get what you can out of that. That's what it's there for. But taking a class is really about getting access to the knowledge and experience of an instructor. That's what people pay for.

rmurphey3 16y ago

1) Let's do some math here. First, as an instructor I don't get to keep all of the revenue (nor should I -- CodeLesson is providing value here as well, for which I am grateful). Second, I will pay approximately 40% in regular and self-employment taxes on my portion of the revenue. My take-home pay for this class, assuming 20 students, will be nowhere even close to $8,000. In exchange for that money, I will spend dozens of hours preparing the content, leading the class, and working with students. This is not a complaint, just a statement of fact. 2) The feedback I have received from students in past classes is that they have found the classes anything but worthless. If you learn well by looking things up on Google, more power to you -- no one's making you take the class. On the other hand, plenty of people benefit from a more guided approach that includes the one-on-one attention of an instructor. Such an approach may expose them to valuable information they didn't know they didn't know, or it may let them make a connection that they wouldn't have arrived at for months or years otherwise. 3) While you may not value training from a subject matter expert, plenty of people do. Companies routinely pay hundreds of dollars per student per day for in-person, on-site training. The cost of the training is expensive; I can only assume that companies consider that cost -- thousands of dollars per day -- quite reasonable relative to the cost of poorly written, unmaintainable code. 4) Finally, if you would like to try your hand at leading trainings for thousands of dollars a day, do it! To find students/clients, expect to spend the next several months traveling to and speaking at conferences; writing detailed, researched blog posts; helping out in support channels; networking at local and regional events; and maybe writing a book or two -- all for little or no money, and perhaps even at a cost to you. Point being: there's a lot more work that goes into becoming someone capable of leading a training than just showing up and cashing a check.