[comp.sys.mac.programmer] New Macintosh CD-Rom Programming Course

wdh@well.sf.ca.us (Bill Hofmann) (01/13/91)

In article <375@adphdw20.UUCP> kab@adpplz.UUCP (Ken Baker) writes:
>	My question is does anyone know about this course and is it worth
>shelling out $495 for?? It says it uses Think C but not which version.
>( I hope it's 4.0) Any information would be helpfull. Thanks!

The course is basically a self-paced version of Developer University's
Macintosh Programming Fundamentals course, a one week (very) intensive
course.  It covers about 90% of the instructor-led course, but actually
is a little more up to date (in particular, the File Manager discussion
uses the methods recommended for system 7 compatability).

It consists of:
	1. Hypercard stacks which run extremely detailed interactive
	   animations with voice (MacroMind Director stuff).
	2. Interactive lab solutions (Mediatracks animations of the
	   solutions)
	3. a rather hefty workbook
	4. some very nice demo programs, modified (improved) versions
	   of the demos used in the regular MPF

During testing, most people got it done in about 6 days.  At the end, 
you have a complete double-clickable Mac application which does the
standard user-interface things, file i/o, printing, scrollable windows,
the whole works.

The course solutions are designed for THINK 4.0.2, but they should work
reasonably well with 3.0 (don't hold me to it).

The course is aimed mostly at companies who have a need to bring people up
to speed on Mac programming, but can't afford the cost of the instructor-led
course ($1375 plus the cost of airfare, hotel,etc) or can't afford to lose
employees for a week.  You basically have to have a CD player and a fairly
loaded Mac available to run the course, so it's not for students (but could
be for a college).

This course will be the base for a series of specialized courses (assuming
people buy this one).  

****Claimer****
I wrote the Drawing into Windows, Control Manager, File Manager and Printing
Units of the course, so I *am* rather deeply involved in the project.  It
was a rather huge project, and while I don't think a student would get as
much out of it as from an instructor-led course (I also teach for Apple),
it *is* an excellent introduction and also a good reference.  Animation, while
it's a *major* pain, allows some things which are very difficult to describe
verbally or in static images to be made quite clear.  It's an interesting
experiment, and I hope that the larger developer community is as excited
about it as *all* our testers, both internal and external, were.
**************

-Bill Hofmann