Magento

ok, fine, but what if I just want to learn by myself with a

...documentation (oups)

Thanks, that looks very interesting.  Does this training link in with certification in any way?

The course is mentioned as being ‘advanced’, what would be prerequisite knowledge and skills?

How often / in which intervals will training sequences take place (e.g. per year). In our current resource/workload situation it is crucial for us to be able to phase the training of our team, so that those who attend the training can concentrate on this, while others meanwhile do the daily business - and vice versa a few weeks later.

How would such a phasing interfere with the 90-day period for training/certification linked with our partner contract in case trainings will take place on a quarterly or even half-year basis e.g.?

Hi there—

I work for php|a. The training will take place on a monthly basis, with some possible exceptions when scheduling becomes difficult due to long holidays, etc.

Cheers!

Marco

Marco, this sounds great! Would you mind to fix any further dates already or do you prefer just to evaluate the first run beforehand?

What level of PHP knowledge do I need in order to sign up the training program?

Thanks!

@phpguru: the dates are fixed together by us and Varien, and we’re working on having additional days for May ready soon.

@chinesedream: the same level of knowledge that you would need to use Magento if you were starting afresh: a good working knowledge of PHP 5. A basic understanding of the Zend Framework would also be beneficial, but is not a requirement.

I’d also like to know more about certification, any further details available?

Oh one more thing, would you consider extra payment terms such as monthly installment?$999.99 is nothing for a medium to big web company, but for freelance web designer, I find paying the amount at once at bit of a burden.

@Rowd: not yet; working on it

@chinesedream: we don’t currently have any plans to offer that; sorry.

@Marco: great! thanks for the info

Can I get the certificate after finish the online training?

Hi Marco, thanks for the info too. Guess I will start saving money for the training

@Adam Shuy - Certification is separate from training - it is not the same program.

How can I get the 5% discount since I am the Silver partner?

@Marco/Roy: Now it really gets interesting: The certification is (according to Roy’s comment) not directly linked to the training. As partner we need to certify a certain number of developers. Do there arise additional certification costs (f yes: how much)? Or are they included in the partnership fee? Does certification contain a/some (standard/reduced) training, or is is ("simply") an exam/test (with a training as an optional valuable preparation)?

Further question: Is there a limitation of the (virtual) “seats” in the training. Let’s assume we don’t decide before mid of April e.g. (depending on the answer to my comment 17), is there a “booked-up” risk for the upcoming training?

I’ve seen this all before with a lot of ecommerce systems.  Some 3rd party company jumps in and hogs all the data and charge fees out the nose. 

I don’t know about others, but all I want is good documentation.

@Lefty1, there are good documentation on this website such as Magento wiki and Magento Designer’s guide.  You can build up the custom Magento store if you fully understand the documents.  Taking the course is to pay someone to help you understand Magento quickly.  It may take me more than three months to build up Magento store by myself if I did not take the course.  It only take me one month to build up my Magento store after I took the course.  It’s your choice.  My Magento website is http://www.epacificweb.com/

Adam Shuy

There are 2 types of documentation. Sparse and detailed.  Overall we have sparse information over quite a few features in Magento.  Take a look in the data flow forum.  One thing about the human mind is that it is not very retentive.  Only through repetition does one retain information.  You can ask any program developer that,

My choice would be a well documented book, /.pdf free or retail under 50 dollars that I could use as reference.  Paying a person for a class or seminar is out of the question do to the above statements, not mentioning the cost of a seat.

Just to let you know not all viewers here can afford paying for a class over an open source product.  Why do you think people use open source?

Left1
I do not recommand everyone taking the course.  There is a book called “php|architect’s Guide to
Programming Magento” by Mark Kimsal. You can try to buy it.  I tried to use other open source code such as fishcart, but it does not have so many document as Magento.  Varien has a company to run, they need to make money to maintain their staff and facility.  To take the course is a symbol to support their effort.  The point I try to say here is magento provides very generous documents compare to other open source project. Especially the forums for user to discuss their problem.

I’ll just end the debate here.  I can go farther into this, but won’t.  I’ll take a look at the guide.