Why 10 hours for a newbie and 30 days for a "programmer"

[Dan Shafer]

I lied. I said I'd stay out of this from now on but I couldn't let this 
comment go unchallenged.

20 or so years ago, I was at Intel. We kept losing design-ins to 
inferior technology. My boss assigned me to figure out why and how to 
fix it. The problem I found was that Motorola was giving engineering 
students free SDKs in engineering school. They'd graduate, go to their 
first job, and their boss would ask them what they wanted to use for 
their project, which was by then already behind schedule. Moto won not 
because they had better technology but because they ensured that 
college grads knew their technology.

That sounds like I agree with Judy and Marian. I don't. Because the 
difference here is two-fold. First, RunRev doesn't have the resources 
to wait four years for college grads to enter the job market with 
experience in Revolution. They have to make profits now.

Second, software isn't like integrated circuits. A company buys one 
tool, not millions of chips. corporate standards always trump 
individual desires. Companies are not going to standardize on 
Revolution because some recent college grad shows up with knowledge of 
it.

In fact, I submit, colleges and  universities are not going to adopt 
Revolution as a teaching language in any significant numbers as long as 
they can get "industry standard" tools like Java, C#, etc., free, even 
if RunRev *pays* them to do so.

I think this part of the discussion is being largely driven by people 
in the education marketplace. And I respect their right to their 
opinions in the spaces they know. But overall, that market is minuscule 
and all but insignificant to software development tool companies for a 
whole host of reasons.

RunRev's a small company. It needs to stick to its knitting and make 
money\, not gratuitously fund newbies in the hope of some phantom 
long-term gain.

Let the rants begin.


On Sep 2, 2004, at 10:48 AM, Judy Perry wrote:

> Because it's in Rev's best interest that they learn to use *their* 
> product
> instead of somebody else's...
>
> Judy
>
> On Wed, 1 Sep 2004, Dan Shafer wrote:
>
>> If they have _no_ skills or background training in software but want 
>> to
>> learn, why should they learn for free?
>
> _______________________________________________
> use-revolution mailing list
> use-revolution at lists.runrev.com
> http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
>
>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dan Shafer, Revolutionary
Author of  "Revolution: Software at the Speed of Thought"
http://www.revolutionpros.com for more info
Available at Runtime Revolution Store (http://www.runrev.com/RevPress)