Courses

The training courses that we plan to offer are currently under development so this page is, for now at least, a placeholder. But as long as you are here, it might be worthwhile to go over some of the things that you will – and will not – see here.

Things you won’t see

1. Introductory Courses

The reason for this exclusion is simple. If there is already someone doing something well, there’s no need to pile on. So if you are looking for a basic introduction to a topic like, LabVIEW or DAQ or real-time, my advice is to go directly to http://www.ni.com/training/. Do not, as the saying goes, pass GO and do not collect $200. NI’s courses (live or online) are very good at teaching you the basics of these topics, and I won’t try to compete with them here.

2. How-to, Cookbook or Tips and Tricks Courses

Such courses (and websites) are easy to spot. They offer a broad selection of “cookbook” solutions or “tips and tricks”, but provide little or no information as to why you would want to use (or not use) any given solution, tip or trick. These sort of sites also tell you nothing about why the presented code is good or why you should want to emulate it in your work – assuming of course the code is any good, which unfortunately it sometimes isn’t…
Just to be clear, there is nothing inherently wrong with showing off small bits of code that do something cool and/or interesting. In fact, the LabVIEW user community supports a number of appropriate venues for that sort of thing. Likewise, I have done a lot of this sort of sharing, over the years, and will probably do a lot more before I’m through. However, people making such presentations (myself included) shouldn’t see themselves as teaching how to program.

Things you will see

1. Course that teach you to think

One of the greatest gifts I got from high school was from a 1st year algebra teacher that on the opening day of classes made us this promise:

“I don’t care if by the end of this year you know how to factor a polynomial or not, but by God you’re going to know how to think.”

What Mrs Kunkle understood was that following rote-learned patterns can only take you so far. She understood that to be really good at something like algebra you have to understand the patterns that are being taught and why they are the way they are. You need to understand that the next step in a process is correct, not because some long-dead expert said so, but because you see that it logically makes sense to do it next. In short: you have to be able to think.

And that is what you will find here. Techniques and tools, yes, but more importantly the understanding of why certain techniques are needed and where they can be used appropriately. Also here, you will find the whole story. My only goal is to see you be successful, and to do that I will tell you everything you need to know to understand and implement the concepts being taught.

2. There is no number 2

The goal here is to press you to grow both through what you learn, and what you teach yourself. If you learn to think for yourself, no number 2 is needed. Come to think of it, that last sentence could be read two ways, and both are correct.