Aha, interesting. You see how you say "why waste the time if you don't have to?" If you're not the system constraint, then the manager should rightly ask "why waste the money if we don't have to?" Pursuing individual developer efficiency is a typical goal, but it is not the right goal for a company. The company should optimize the whole system efficiency. Sometimes (in fact, fairly often) that means making local parts of the system (the programmer in this case) less efficient.
There is a tension here between the developer wanting to learn the most possible in the best way while wasting the least amount of time. But on a system level, that may very well be a Very Bad Decision. Sometimes you want people in a manufacturing plant sitting around reading the paper rather than working, because if they are more efficient, the whole system suffers. And sometimes, it's better to take four weeks to learn a new framework and learn it only well enough to use it so that it works, rather than learn it in four days and learn it deeply. The trick is figuring out which part of the system to optimize. And this is something that programmers don't take the time to figure out, generally. --Sean Stickle -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Seth MacPherson Sent: Monday, January 16, 2006 7:35 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [CFCDev] Free vs. Paid Training for CF frameworks WAS State of Coldfusion UI Development Did he just say global system optimization? Good grief! ;) Granted, you may "figure out" Mach-II in four weeks but why waste the time if you don't have to? Ben and Hal's class is offering you far more than you could learn by reading tutorials or building a couple demos on your own. Ultimately Sean's point about training budget is spot on. Would you rather learn a foreign language from a set of CD's and a book or would you prefer cultural submersion with a guide? For me, I'm with Sean again. You have to spend money to make money. You have to invest in your professional development - as do companies who want to develop a culture of learning. My two cents. - Seth -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Sean Stickle Sent: Monday, January 16, 2006 4:14 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [CFCDev] Free vs. Paid Training for CF frameworks WAS State of Coldfusion UI Development This makes the assumption that you are the constraint in a production system. If you are not the constraint in the system, then spending additional money on top of your salary is probably not justified. Better to take the four weeks and learn Mach-II on your own. You can't just take the hourly rate, multiply it by some hours and say that that's the amount saved. Unless the company pays you less if you get something done quicker (or unless you are the system constraint), there is no real company savings. If you *are* the system constraint, however, and training would make you more productive faster, then it might be a fine investment. The idea that there is some sort of absolute savings because you took less time to learn something is flawed. It assumes a local optimization, whereas global system optimization is what is really sought. --Sean Stickle -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Sean Corfield Sent: Monday, January 16, 2006 6:55 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [CFCDev] Free vs. Paid Training for CF frameworks WAS State of Coldfusion UI Development On 1/15/06, Nando <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > "Would you like to learn Mach-II much more efficiently and easily, > from the guy who created it?" Hal and Ben do a great four day training course that is well worth the $2,500 (approx) that it costs. Suppose you'd struggle for four or five weeks to figure out Mach II... suppose the course gets you there in just that four days. You'd just saved yourself three or four weeks of struggling (over $6,000 in productive income @ $50/hr) for less than half that in cost. Sounds like value to me. That's how you sell a training budget to your manager... -- Sean A Corfield -- http://corfield.org/ Got frameworks? "If you're not annoying somebody, you're not really alive." -- Margaret Atwood ---------------------------------------------------------- You are subscribed to cfcdev. To unsubscribe, send an email to [email protected] with the words 'unsubscribe cfcdev' as the subject of the email. CFCDev is run by CFCZone (www.cfczone.org) and supported by CFXHosting (www.cfxhosting.com). An archive of the CFCDev list is available at www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] ---------------------------------------------------------- You are subscribed to cfcdev. To unsubscribe, send an email to [email protected] with the words 'unsubscribe cfcdev' as the subject of the email. CFCDev is run by CFCZone (www.cfczone.org) and supported by CFXHosting (www.cfxhosting.com). An archive of the CFCDev list is available at www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] ---------------------------------------------------------- You are subscribed to cfcdev. To unsubscribe, send an email to [email protected] with the words 'unsubscribe cfcdev' as the subject of the email. CFCDev is run by CFCZone (www.cfczone.org) and supported by CFXHosting (www.cfxhosting.com). An archive of the CFCDev list is available at www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] ---------------------------------------------------------- You are subscribed to cfcdev. To unsubscribe, send an email to [email protected] with the words 'unsubscribe cfcdev' as the subject of the email. CFCDev is run by CFCZone (www.cfczone.org) and supported by CFXHosting (www.cfxhosting.com). An archive of the CFCDev list is available at www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
