Chariot Summer Training Schedule - Maven, Rails and Spring Courses

We are excited to announce the following courses on our schedule between now and August. Registration can be performed online by following the links below. In addition to these course offerings, we can provide private, on-or-offsite training for your developers.

• Introduction to Maven (SonaType's Maven 101 course) - a great introduction to Maven, this course details how to build single-project and multi-project maven-based applications. We discuss how to diagnose and fix dependency problems, configuring plugins, and many other topics.
• Maven Development Infrastructure Design (SonaType's Maven 201 course) - The Maven Development Infrastructure Design course picks up where the 101 course leaves off, including site generation and reporting, dealing with web development, repository management, release management and continuous integration.
• From Zero to Rails 3 by Engine Yard - This course, being taught the first time by Engine Yard at Chariot Solutions, shows developers how to write applications in Rails 3.0. Topics include an introduction to Ruby, the Rails core, Active Record, REST, TDD, hosting and deployment, Gems and PlugIns.
• Core Spring Framework, 3.0 - This is SpringSource's official courseware for Spring 3.0. Topics include the core container, XML, annotation-driven and Java configuration, AOP, JDBC, Spring Web MVC, remoting, ORM, JMX, and more.

All of our courses are being hosted at Chariot Solutions, in our new training center. The new training facility sports powerful 22" iMac computers, which can be configured to run Windows or Mac OS X software, and we will provide you with plenty of food and access to wireless internet during your stay.

We are conveniently located just off the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Fort Washington, just north of Philadelphia. For information about our training facilities, or to book private training either at Chariot Solutions or onsite at your location, contact us for further information.

Training and Mentoring before the age of Google

Ah, I can remember it like it was yesterday. I'm 40 now, but in my mid 20's, I was one of those "wiz-kids" at the dawn of Client Server. When BitNet and BBSes were the norm and the "Internet" was usually accessed using UseNet net news and a dialup modem.

In those years, my now-Chariot co-hort Gordon Dickens and I led training courses in technologies like Powerbuilder (remember that?), Sybase and Microsoft SQL Server, Data Modeling, and more. We were eventually the first firm in the Philly area to teach Java (and Gordon and I the first instructors). I never looked back.

Funny story: I was teaching an Introduction to SQL course, and in those days the workstations weren't powerful enough to run a server engine. So, we had everyone wired up to the instructor machine (which was a powerful HP 9000 server). Nobody could connect on the second day. I must have spent 30 minutes walking between the network server and the workstations, checking client configurations.

I finally went to another more seasoned instructor and asked him what might be wrong. He took one look at the floor, smiled wryly, and handed me the unplugged network cable that fell out of the server.

I tell you that because, all these years later, one of my co-workers just explained what "being an expert" is: you've made all of those stupid mistakes that other people have yet to make. I am pretty sure I agree.

Now we at Chariot are providing public and private training, and we are offering official SpringSource Core Spring training, starting September 29th. It reminds me of my early days at Information Technologists with Gordon Dickens and a host of other wonderful consultants and trainers. I have to say that I haven't been as happy working at a technology company since those early days.

My goals for the training practice are simple: stay away from "Sheep Dip" training approaches (rapid-fire, run through the slides at all costs and only teach to those left at the end), and truly try to reach each student in whatever way is possible. I hope we will meet and teach many new students in the coming years, but our overriding goal for the program is to teach the essential skills needed for students to become self-sufficient in the technology being taught.

This is at the core of who we are at Chariot. Browse our website. Listen to the podcasts. Read our blog posts. Follow our #ChariotSolution or #techcast twitter streams. Browse our presentations dating back half a decade. These are talented folks, and I'm very glad I am able to offer my skills in reaching others to a company that truly cares about doing the right thing to provide solutions and elevate the skills of their community, clients and employees.