RE: To XML or to UI

["Cassandra Greer" <cassandra -at- greer -dot- de>]

Hi John!

Well, I had the impression you already had a solid handle on XML. Anyway,
like others have said, the basics aren't that hard and can be learned on
your own. I have no idea what the XML course you are considering entails or
whether this Cooper course is really worth it, so I can really say which
course is the best for you. However, I do see a number of advantages of
taking the Cooper course, esp. if your boss has suggested it.

If you and your boss attend the same seminar this is a really cool way to
get to know each other better (I know you haven't been at this company that
long). I don't mean that in a brown-nosing sort of way but for real. Before,
during and after the seminar, the both of you will undoubtedly discuss your
expectations of the seminar and what really comes of it in relation to what
the company needs (and hopefully, by extension, what the customers need). It
won't be your boss coming back and then trying to get across what he
learned. It will be two of you with two different views of the whole thing -
making what you bring back a bit more balanced and it will make it easier to
implement any changes in your own company if there are two of you instead of
just your boss. Also this is, gee, what should I call it? 'soft' information
that is really hard to learn and process on your own (even from books)
without external input and feedback. Even if the Cooper course sucks, two of
your processing it will help keep it from being a total waste.

XML, on the other hand, is pretty concrete. Your develop your tags, set up
your transformations and away you go (once you get your parser to do what
you want to do at any rate). But like Mark said, planning the UI beforehand
will help the tags fall into place. In my experience getting the UI down was
a zillion times harder, basically because the indiviuals involved could not
reach agreement. Everyone was as clueless as everyone else and no one had
hard arguments just boneheaded opinions, sometimes vaguely based on
something they had read but mostly not. And then there was the feature creep
during development - but let's not go there. In this case, the both of you
would have hard arguments :)))

Plus how could anyone pass up a trip to SF? (no I'm not biased ;)))

Good luck!

Cass :))


> Hi, guys...I preparing to enroll in a four-day training program on XML.
> As I'm talking to my boss about it, he mentions that he's going to be
> attending the 4 day Interaction Design Practicum at Cooper U in SF:
>
> "Our 4-day Interaction Design Practicum is our foundation course. It
> covers design principles and patterns, specifications, research, persona
> creation, requirements definition, interaction framework definition, and
> scenario-driven iteration."
> http://www.cooper.com/content/cooperu/practicum.asp
>
> He asks me if I also want to go. The kicker is that my budget for the
> year won't allow both, so if I want to go to the Cooper UI training, I'd
> have to blow off the XML training. What to do...
>
> What would YOU do? Personally, I'm still leaning toward the XML
> training, but I want to make sure I'm not missing a golden,
> once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
>
> Anyone go through the Cooper program and did it help them to be a better
> technical writer?
>
> John Posada