I started taking the "Functional Programming in Scala" course offered a
couple of months ago, but it was an enormous time commitment. I had a
week-long trip to the office (in the UK - my job is a long and confusing
story) which got me so far behind (two weeks, the way the lessons ran),
that I would have had no hope of catching up (with, like Shaun, a full-time
job and two young children), so I had to drop out after about 3 or 4 weeks.
I'm sort of conflicted about this. I understand Coursera's problem:
courses can't be too simple, or else there's no legitimacy. But at the same
time, every course can't be a weeder course, either. I legitimately spent
*way* more time per week on this course than I did on *any* course in
college (at least not this much effort /every week/), but at the end of the
day, the amount of any practical knowledge I was gaining from the course
was being far overwhelmed by things I actually needed to be learning
immediately for my job and general obligations to my life and family.
Maybe I just chose the wrong class, but Coursera's curriculum seems pretty
terrible for professional development. It's great, however, if you have
time to be a full-time student.
-Ross.
On Nov 30, 2012, at 4:32 PM, "Donahue, Amy" <[email protected]> wrote:
Another little quick comment, adding to the chorus of lurkers and people
who aren't sure if they're coders. Someday I hope to get to a code4lib
conference (if only to tell people in person I knew Jonathan Rochkind way
back when), but in the meantime I've been on this list on and off (but
mostly on) since I graduated, and it's been nothing but a wonderful
resource, and a place I know I can always turn for that time when I have a
tech question.
But I wanted to point out a possible resource for those of us who aren't
sure of what we know and who want to know more. Coursera has been on my
radar through multiple channels, but not yet on here. It appears they do
have some basic programming courses, as well as theory. I'm curious to
know if anyone has taken any of these, or has any thoughts on this method
of learning... https://www.coursera.org/category/cs-programming
Amy
-------------------------------------------------------
Amy Donahue, MLIS, AHIP
414.955.8326
User Education/Reference Librarian
Medical College of Wisconsin Libraries - Link. Learn. Lead.
http://www.mcw.edu/mcwlibraries.htm
-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
Bess Sadler
Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2012 12:07 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] What is a "coder"?
On Nov 29, 2012, at 6:13 AM, Christie Peterson <[email protected]>
wrote:
If this were "training" in the sense of a seminar or a formal class on
the exact same topics, I would be eligible for full funding, but since it's
a "conference," it's funded at a significantly lower level. I'll gladly
take suggestions anyone has for arguments about why attendance at these
types of events is critical to successfully doing my work in a way that,
say, attending ALA isn't -- and why, therefore, they should be supported at
a higher funding rate than typical "library" conferences. Any non-coders
successfully made this argument before?
Cheers,
Christie S. Peterson
Christie you are not the only person who can get travel funding for
training but not for conferences, and you are not the only person on the
fence about whether you belong in code4lib. In my mind you are exactly the
kind of person I would like to attract to code4lib, so I very much hope
you'll join us. Archives in particular are facing significant technological
challenges right now, and as someone who has been known to develop software
for born digital archives[1] I have seen how vital it is to have a common
language and vocabulary, and a common way of approaching problem solving,
in order to create a system that will actually work according to archival
principles.
One option to consider would be signing up for one of the
pre-conferences. Given the background you've described and the challenges
you face in your career, I think you could make a very strong argument that
having a basic introduction to programming concepts would be helpful for
you. Luckily there is a free full-day of training to be had the day before
the conference starts! Please consider joining us at the RailsBridge and/or
Blacklight workshops or at any of the other workshops that look interesting
to you that you think you could pitch as training.
Even outside of the code4lib context, I strongly encourage others who
face those kinds of travel funding constraints to get creative. Some of the
best learning opportunities of my life and the best pivotal moments in my
career happened because members of this community decided there was an
unmet need and they were going to do something about it. CurateCAMP springs
to mind. The many regional code4lib meetings are in this category. And
also: one time when a few code4lib folks were trying to get open source
discovery projects off the ground we just decided to create an "Open Source
Library Discovery Summit" in Philadelphia, declared ourselves invited
speakers, and attended. And it was a very successful meeting and a very
good use of university funds!
Christie, if there is training or skills development that, if it were
offered at code4lib, would do you some good, you are certainly not the only
person who could benefit from it. I strongly encourage you to think about
what training opportunities are missing in your corner of the library /
archives world, and then have some conversations with members of this
community about how we could provide that training together. I would love
to hear your thoughts on the subject.
Best wishes,
Bess
[1] http://hypatia-demo.stanford.edu Tell your funders you have to go
to code4lib because hydra is the future of born digital archives and this
is the conference where the developers hang out and you need to talk to
them about strategic directions for their project so that it will address
your problems. :D
