Hi John
Since I teach the QSSL Photon courses here in Kanata at head
office, I think I can provide a few bits of information that
might help. I encourage you to talk with others as well, since
I’ve obviously got a somewhat… biased point of view. 
John Zigrang <jtz@interworld.net> wrote:
I am just getting started on QNX and Photon and started to look
into training. It looks like most of the Unix based systems
have training with a cost range from $2000 to $5000 a course.
And to get the Unix and GUI it takes two to three courses.
My question is: How good are the courses:
- Value for the $$, I would have to take a week off (as a
consultant) , go to an other city so I have an extra $1500 per course.
Are the QNX courses, or others setup so you can really keep the
information provided and really get to work when you come back?
Value for $$ is a subjective thing, of course, but I’ve seen a
wide variety of folks go though my classroom in the past few
years, and the feedback they give us suggests they’re satisfied.
The printed course manual for the Photon Intro. course is 398
pages long, and it goes home with you. You also get 75 sample
programs, and the results of all the various practice exercises
you do during the course. Our other courses do the same sort of
thing.
- Are the courses flexible enough to get your first project issues
answered and worked on in the class?
This would be a Photon course.
The Photon intro. course is 3 days, and we pack a lot of material
into it. There is some room to customize - I point out and
emphasize elements that are particularly relevant to each student
as we go - but it’s really a matter of you building something in
the classroom that will go directly into your own project. What
we’ve done is try to teach to the basic issues that the typical
user has when starting with Photon.
You can find a course syllabus at
http://www.qnx.com/support/training/pintro_course.html
- Is it better to take them back to back if possible to to have a
gap, and how much?
It depends on the student. Some prefer to take everything at
once, and have a good experience. I’ve also seen students who
did this go into information overload. The courses are quite
intensive - we pack as much material as possible into the time
available.
One other thought - don’t underestimate the quality of the
printed resources available to you as well. The online
documentation is well worth looking at (especially the various
architecture sections, which give you an idea of how things fit
together). Rob Krten’s book on RTP (see www.parse.com) has also
got a good reputation. That’s about the OS level of things,
though, not the GUI. To the best of my knowledge, there aren’t
any 3rd-party books on Photon.
The more homework you’ve done before starting a course, the less
likely you are to go into overload, I think. That said, all of
our courses (with one exception) assume no knowledge beyond an
ability to program in C. The exception is the advance Photon
course, which assumes the user has taken the intro. course, or
picked up equivalent experience along the way.
[snip]
I’ll leave your other questions for others to answer, since their
experience is going to be more relevant than mine.
I hope this helps you make your decision. If you’ve got
particular questions, you might want to contact our Training
Coordinator at training@qnx.com.
Good luck!
Norbert Black
QSSL Training Services
I would