I see this from both sides having attended many courses and taught
quite a few recently. As you say, in most cases it is possible to
learn from a book or user guide but this can be quite difficult
sitting in an office with e-mails, phones and other interruptions. It
is very difficult to really concentrate and forget about that looming
deadline.
Getting out of the office to attend a training course means changing
your environment and really getting away from those distractions. You
really can learn more, and quicker, with a structured course. Whilst
books can include examples and exercises they can't answer questions
or relate topics to your specific area of work. A good trainer will
try to find out a little about his students and what problems they
face in their day to day work.
Not all companies see the value, but those that invest in their people
are usually rewarded. Don't forget that not only are they paying the
course fee but also losing on-the-job time and possibly facing other
costs (travel, hotel, etc) so this can be quite a substantial cost.
I can think of several very successful companies that do nothing but training.
So yes, there is the demand and the costs are worth it - assuming you
get a well written course and an instructor who knows what she/he is
talking about. ;)
Rich
2008/5/21 Captain Haddock <ashfixate@???>:
> Hello All,
>
> This is not directly relevant to Linux but since there are a lot of you who
> obviously work in IT, I was wondering if you could help me with this
> question.
>
> During a random walk on the net, I came across a company that provides
> training in C/C++ and the other programming languages and charges fees above
> £2.5K/person for them. It seems sort of strange that in todays world with so
> many books and online guides any company would be willing to shell out so
> much money for a C programming training course. What exactly is the target
> audience for such courses? The only one I can think of is if a company
> needs to build a team of C Programmers in record time, but even that does
> not seem to convincing cnsidering how programmers find it easy to transition
> between languages and could probably learn the language themselves without
> too much of a problem.
>
> Is there really a high enough demand that companies can charge such fees and
> get away with it? or is it more like there is very low demand so the fees
> are high just to make a profit from the trickle of customers that they can
> get?
>
> Thanks in advance!
>
> Ashwin
>
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