[GLLUG] Open Source education

[Dave Rogers]

Here's an article you may find interesting:

http://www.python.org/workshops/2000-01/proceedings/papers/elkner/pyYHS.html

Now my banter about the first response you got:

I live and work in the Lansing area for a 5,000 employee company and I 
make a respectable (high?) wage doing Webware/Python, Apache, and .Net 
development.

For awhile, I was using only open source tools as a consultant for this 
large company.  Since I performed so well with the open source 
technology, I got hired on as a F/T employee at a higher wage.

Its true that large businesses want to standardize but by educating 
people in open source technology there's at least a chance down the road 
that people will embrace it either as they can experience producitivty 
boosts or once people are put in management positions where they can 
"allow" open source technology to be used.  I've also noticed that most 
mid-sized and small companies are more focused on "getting something 
that works".  They aren't so concerned about the technology used and can 
still pay a respectable wage (at worst for consulting).

I still code in Python almost everyday.

Now all we need is to get people to embrace Object Relational Mappers... 
but that's another story.

Dave


Clay Dowling wrote:

>Szymon Machajewski said:
>  
>
>>Could anyone share with me any articles about open source in education?
>>
>>At GRCC we are teaching three open source courses: Linux Admin, Apache
>>Security, and PHP/MySQL Web Databases.
>>I am looking for news articles or other sources that would bring up the
>>need for Open Source courses.
>>Also I'm wondering if you could suggest marketing ways for such
>>courses.
>>    
>>
>
>It might be worth your while to take a look at the server and operating
>that's dominated the Netcraft server rankings for several years now. 
>Linux/Apache/PHP are dominating.
>
>Unfortunately you can't use job figures for your advertising.  Employment
>opportunities in Michigan focus more on Microsoft technology or Java.  in
>other words, it's great that you're offering these classes, but you aren't
>really setting your students up for career success based on current
>trends.  At least in Michigan, advertised job vacancies for those skills
>are few and far between, with laughable pay scales.  If you want those
>classes to be relevant to your students after school, you'd better pair
>them with some courses in Entrepreneurship and Small Business Finance. 
>That's how they're going to have to make their money.
>
>Clay
>  
>


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