DerekAllard.com

Web Application / CodeIgniter face to face course in Toronto

Some of you who know me, know that I roughly split my professional time between development and training.  I’ve been lucky to have some success over the years, and I’ve managed to build up a pretty good rapport with local universities and colleges.  Like any relationship, after a while, your input starts to be highly trusted, and I’m fortunate to find myself in this situation.  It has put me in a position recently to get a new course on the books at area schools, I’ve called it “Building a Web Application: Concept to Completion Workshop”.  Why do you care?  It’s a course on how to build a web application using CodeIgniter and other “web 2.0” technologies.

My vision was to create a course for working web professionals who want to explore the ins and outs of CodeIgniter, professional web 2.0 application development, and/or have a vision for a web application, but don’t know how to make it a reality.  This is not a course to teach you PHP, and javascript - I expect that you already have intermediate knowledge of that - and preferably you’ve built a few things with PHP/JS before, and now want to get ambitious.  I will assume though that you’ve never used CodeIgniter before, and on that front we’ll start at “ground zero”, and quickly build our way up.

We’re going to plan, wireframe, mockup and build a full-on, functional web-application.  I’m not sure what exactly yet, but it’ll be something practical, and not a complex example of “hello world”.  It’ll be data-intensive, and I’ll probably release the final product under the GPL, just like BambooInvoice. 

The first run is going to be in North Toronto at Seneca College’s Markham Campus.  If I get any interest from around Hamilton, I also have permission to start up a course at McMaster University.

Here’s the “official” course description.

This course is intended for students who have completed the XHTML, Javascript and PHP workshops, or working web professionals or freelancers with comparable experience.  This 2 day hands on workshop will focus on the creation of a web application from concept to completion.  Emphasis will be on structured semantic coding, CSS driven presentation and layout, modern unobtrusive Javsacript techniques and the robust PHP framework Code Igniter, to power the application.  Special topics include AJAX and Javascript effects, PHP frameworks, user authentication and management, email solutions, complex database design and scalable, cross browser implementation.

If you are interested, the first run will be May 8/9 (don’t worry, there’ll be more).  You can enroll online at Seneca College’s online enrollment.  If you do enroll, please contact me or leave a comment here - I’d love to know in advance who is going to be there.  And for the record, I don’t get commission or anything silly like that, I’m only blogging about this since I think its an exciting opportunity to bring part of the CodeIgniter community together, and to show that CI is raising its profile every day.

My ambitious plans include a CodeIgniter textbook to accompany this that I’ll write but that probably won’t get done for May 8/9 (who knows… its started, now its a question of finding the time).

Comments

Yannick wrote on

This is pretty awesome Derek. This will certainly get the word out about CI, but most importantly I’m sure it will be a great opportunity and experience for you.

I wish you all the best with the workshop. Let us know how it goes.

Derek wrote on

Thanks Yannick.  Too back you didn’t leave in Toronto ;)

Lewis wrote on

Any change you could film it? It would be great to see how you’d go about teaching that kind of stuff. :P

Yannick wrote on

Derek: You love those typos don’t you? I hope you don’t go and put typos in your presentation. :)

Derek wrote on

Lewis: I’d love to film this, but I don’t think I’m allowed to as I’m instructing on behalf of a college, and they have pretty specific rules about that type of thing.  I’ll see about getting permission though!

@Yannick… I’d like to claim I did that on purpose… but… I didn’t.  My typos are really starting to “butt” me…

Roy wrote on

Man! Thats gonna be great!!! Maybe i should stop managing and go through my php, js and all that other stuff this weekend! We all want to know… how many payments of $29.95?

James Nicol wrote on

Derek, awesome idea. I totally would go! Running any from May 25-30?? I will be in town then.

Champs wrote on

I’m still not seeing Code Igniter’s license as GPL-compatible.

Without getting a special license granted, you will have to BI separately, or distribute tainted not-really-GPL code.

I don’t believe Rick/EllisLab can really get that thorny issue cleared up to suit everyone’s purposes under the GPL umbrella, but there is certainly a FOSS license that won’t “infect” transfers of code between EE and CI.

Derek wrote on

@Roy: Just hand over a blank cheque ok, we can worry about costs later. :D

@James: Nothing scheduled, but I’m sure we can find a few moments to nerd out over CodeIgniter.  Any other CI’ers or wannabe CI’ers want a beer in the North end of Toronto around then?

@Champs: interesting thoughts.  I’ve written you privately to discuss, since I don’t want this entry to go into too much of a tangent.  Thanks for the contribution.

jaymiblue wrote on

Fantastic Derek, CI on the road - I am so eager to develop my skills further, this is probably a long shot! any chance of any roadshows in the UK? - Nottingham? or featured course material make it onto here as a screencast or tutorial blog? And will the course textbook be available? - lotsa questions sorry! - keep up the fantastic work!

Derek wrote on

Wow, I’d love to go to the UK, but that’s not too likely in the near future.  But there is already a push to get something like this recorded or streamed, so watch this space! ;)  Thanks for posting jaymiblue!

Stuart Starr wrote on

Hi Derek.  I am just starting to use CodeIgniter.  I am more the project manager but I am a bungling PHP programmer.  What level of programming do you thikn is a pre-requisite for this course?  I basically want to be able to be more hands on with my developer as I steer him in the CI direction.

Derek wrote on

The course will be best targeted towards people who have a decent “off the top of my head” knowledge of PHP.  I won’t be reviewing PHP syntax or anything, but I will be teaching the CodeIgniter syntax, so there will be only some need for PHP mastery, and nothing that you won’t be able to pick up as you go.  Hey, why not bring your developer with you?

Henry Jin wrote on

Kerry returned today says your course rocks. I hope we could have chance to chat. I just finished a project using CakePHP + jQuery for SMH. Just start to look at Scriptaculous+Prototype and CodeIgniter.