Xilinx courses

[Martin Euredjian]

Maybe so. Hart to tell at this point. Certainly the material in the book
would open the door to very interesting and useful discussion of advanced
topics, none of which were explored, some were recited, others skipped over.

I think there are two groups within your company that might need a flame
(not a match) lit under their chairs: web design and
education/documentation.

The website can be incredibly retarded and just not up to par with what good
website design folks can do today. Sure, it's expensive to hire these heavy
hitters, but Xilinx can afford it.

I only have one sample of the education group's output and, as you learned,
they didn't put on a good show as far as I am concerned.

I think there are huge gaping holes in the available documentation and
devices are getting increasingly more complex. I think there's a need to
address this --by experts, not fresh grads-- and it's not being done.

Some of these topics might include floorplanning, design optimization,
timing optimization, FPGA Editor, design flow optimization and automation
(XFLOW, scripting, command-line tricks, etc.). I'm not talking about being
able to download a document describing the various available timing
constraints, for example, but a practical, in-the-trenches set of docs
treating these topics in order to support designers in both adopting and
succesfully utilizing these devices in an already difficult marketplace.

Within the next few months I'll probably have a need to hire a couple of
FPGA/Embedded guys, and the realization that I can't seem to rely on even
sending them to a manufacturer-provided course in order to enhance their
ability to generate accurate designs that perform well is what triggered
some of my concern.

Still, this is not a Xilinx putdown but rather costructive criticism. I
love the chips and will probably continue to use them for a long time. I
have over half a dozen high-performance imaging products in the works and,
at this point, all of them have Xilinx FPGA's in them.


--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Martin Euredjian

To send private email:
0_0_0_0_@pacbell.net
where
"0_0_0_0_" = "martineu"




"Austin Lesea" <Austin.Lesea@xilinx.com> wrote in message
news:3F7DB8E8.A11339E0@xilinx.com...

Martin,

I am sorry you had a bad experience.

I will ask about it. I had heard from others that this particular course
was a
good one (some of my own staff have taken it), so I am hoping that your
experience was not the course, but perhaps the instructor (still
unfortunate,
and not acceptable).

Austin

Martin Euredjian wrote:

I recently took the "Advanced FPGA Implementation (v6)" Instructor-Led
Course and came out of it with a fair bit of dissappointment. I don't
want
to engage in Xilinx-bashing but it bothers me that the course was simply
not
worthy of the title it was given.

The only reason I might get something out of it will be because I will
pour
over the 500 page book on my own and experiment for many, many hours.
The
class boiled down to a bunch of slides (a very small subset of the book,
maybe 20%) being read out loud with a degree of re-interpretation. The
labs
were based on an obscure design that was not introduced at all. So, all
you
could do in the alloted time was type from the book like a robot and
move
on. No real learning took place there.

I took the course because, after a two-year effort --starting from
scratch--
to learn FPGA's, I thought that an advanced course taught by an expert
in
the field would be a great way to take my skills up a notch or two. I
needed to get to that proverbial last few percent and, frankly, I also
felt
stuck with regards to timing optimization, floorplanning and other
advanced
areas. I thought that an "advanced" course would be taught by a peer
who'd
offer the sort of insight that only comes from significant experience in
the
field and, yes, inside information. That is certainly not what
happened. I
can read slides just as well as the next guy. I don't need to pay
$1,000,
travel and burn two days' work to endure that experience.

So, I wonder. Was this a fluke? Are the other coursed different,
better,
worst? Are Altera's courses better? It seems that Xilinx contracts out
the
trainig to a third party (a company called "Technically Speaking". I
heard
that Altera chooses to use insiders. Is this true? Does it make a
difference?

Thanks,

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Martin Euredjian

To send private email:
0_0_0_0_@pacbell.net
where
"0_0_0_0_" = "martineu"

 

[Theron Hicks (Terry)]

I agree with Martin! I can't speak for the classes, but the rest is definitely
true. I hope someone at Xilinx is listening. There is no doubt (at least in my
mind) that Xilinx has some great FPGAs, etc. The software seems to be fairly
well done, although it could use some improvement. The area of improvement is
in simple, useable documentation. If I need to check three or for different
areas for a full picture of what it taakes to get a job done, can you at least
create a link between the areas. Xilinx could save a bundle in tech support, if
they would just improve the documentation. It might even get them a few more
customers. It generally is not a good idea to PO the customer. (Usually Xilinx
does not do that.)

Theron Hicks


Martin Euredjian wrote:

Maybe so. Hart to tell at this point. Certainly the material in the book
would open the door to very interesting and useful discussion of advanced
topics, none of which were explored, some were recited, others skipped over.

I think there are two groups within your company that might need a flame
(not a match) lit under their chairs: web design and
education/documentation.

The website can be incredibly retarded and just not up to par with what good
website design folks can do today. Sure, it's expensive to hire these heavy
hitters, but Xilinx can afford it.

I only have one sample of the education group's output and, as you learned,
they didn't put on a good show as far as I am concerned.

I think there are huge gaping holes in the available documentation and
devices are getting increasingly more complex. I think there's a need to
address this --by experts, not fresh grads-- and it's not being done.

Some of these topics might include floorplanning, design optimization,
timing optimization, FPGA Editor, design flow optimization and automation
(XFLOW, scripting, command-line tricks, etc.). I'm not talking about being
able to download a document describing the various available timing
constraints, for example, but a practical, in-the-trenches set of docs
treating these topics in order to support designers in both adopting and
succesfully utilizing these devices in an already difficult marketplace.

Within the next few months I'll probably have a need to hire a couple of
FPGA/Embedded guys, and the realization that I can't seem to rely on even
sending them to a manufacturer-provided course in order to enhance their
ability to generate accurate designs that perform well is what triggered
some of my concern.

Still, this is not a Xilinx putdown but rather costructive criticism. I
love the chips and will probably continue to use them for a long time. I
have over half a dozen high-performance imaging products in the works and,
at this point, all of them have Xilinx FPGA's in them.

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Martin Euredjian

To send private email:
0_0_0_0_@pacbell.net
where
"0_0_0_0_" = "martineu"

"Austin Lesea" <Austin.Lesea@xilinx.com> wrote in message
news:3F7DB8E8.A11339E0@xilinx.com...
Martin,

I am sorry you had a bad experience.

I will ask about it. I had heard from others that this particular course
was a
good one (some of my own staff have taken it), so I am hoping that your
experience was not the course, but perhaps the instructor (still
unfortunate,
and not acceptable).

Austin

Martin Euredjian wrote:

I recently took the "Advanced FPGA Implementation (v6)" Instructor-Led
Course and came out of it with a fair bit of dissappointment. I don't
want
to engage in Xilinx-bashing but it bothers me that the course was simply
not
worthy of the title it was given.

The only reason I might get something out of it will be because I will
pour
over the 500 page book on my own and experiment for many, many hours.
The
class boiled down to a bunch of slides (a very small subset of the book,
maybe 20%) being read out loud with a degree of re-interpretation. The
labs
were based on an obscure design that was not introduced at all. So, all
you
could do in the alloted time was type from the book like a robot and
move
on. No real learning took place there.

I took the course because, after a two-year effort --starting from
scratch--
to learn FPGA's, I thought that an advanced course taught by an expert
in
the field would be a great way to take my skills up a notch or two. I
needed to get to that proverbial last few percent and, frankly, I also
felt
stuck with regards to timing optimization, floorplanning and other
advanced
areas. I thought that an "advanced" course would be taught by a peer
who'd
offer the sort of insight that only comes from significant experience in
the
field and, yes, inside information. That is certainly not what
happened. I
can read slides just as well as the next guy. I don't need to pay
$1,000,
travel and burn two days' work to endure that experience.

So, I wonder. Was this a fluke? Are the other coursed different,
better,
worst? Are Altera's courses better? It seems that Xilinx contracts out
the
trainig to a third party (a company called "Technically Speaking". I
heard
that Altera chooses to use insiders. Is this true? Does it make a
difference?

Thanks,

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Martin Euredjian

To send private email:
0_0_0_0_@pacbell.net
where
"0_0_0_0_" = "martineu"

 

[Austin Lesea]

Theron, Martin,

We have a number of folks actively researching this issue, The class mentioned
turns out to be one of the most popular (from what the surveys from the attendees
say), and the one that gets very high marks from the attendees also.

The instructor has taught this (as well as other courses) for 6 years, and also gets
very high marks in his reviews.

It is extrememly important to us to discover what happened in this case, as it seems
very unusual, and not in keeping with the survey results, and comments from other
attendees.

One bad review posted here does a lot of damage: and we are concerned especially
when we have hundreds of glowing reviews for the same class/instructor!

Austin


"Theron Hicks (Terry)" wrote:

I agree with Martin! I can't speak for the classes, but the rest is definitely
true. I hope someone at Xilinx is listening. There is no doubt (at least in my
mind) that Xilinx has some great FPGAs, etc. The software seems to be fairly
well done, although it could use some improvement. The area of improvement is
in simple, useable documentation. If I need to check three or for different
areas for a full picture of what it taakes to get a job done, can you at least
create a link between the areas. Xilinx could save a bundle in tech support, if
they would just improve the documentation. It might even get them a few more
customers. It generally is not a good idea to PO the customer. (Usually Xilinx
does not do that.)

Theron Hicks

Martin Euredjian wrote:

Maybe so. Hart to tell at this point. Certainly the material in the book
would open the door to very interesting and useful discussion of advanced
topics, none of which were explored, some were recited, others skipped over.

I think there are two groups within your company that might need a flame
(not a match) lit under their chairs: web design and
education/documentation.

The website can be incredibly retarded and just not up to par with what good
website design folks can do today. Sure, it's expensive to hire these heavy
hitters, but Xilinx can afford it.

I only have one sample of the education group's output and, as you learned,
they didn't put on a good show as far as I am concerned.

I think there are huge gaping holes in the available documentation and
devices are getting increasingly more complex. I think there's a need to
address this --by experts, not fresh grads-- and it's not being done.

Some of these topics might include floorplanning, design optimization,
timing optimization, FPGA Editor, design flow optimization and automation
(XFLOW, scripting, command-line tricks, etc.). I'm not talking about being
able to download a document describing the various available timing
constraints, for example, but a practical, in-the-trenches set of docs
treating these topics in order to support designers in both adopting and
succesfully utilizing these devices in an already difficult marketplace.

Within the next few months I'll probably have a need to hire a couple of
FPGA/Embedded guys, and the realization that I can't seem to rely on even
sending them to a manufacturer-provided course in order to enhance their
ability to generate accurate designs that perform well is what triggered
some of my concern.

Still, this is not a Xilinx putdown but rather costructive criticism. I
love the chips and will probably continue to use them for a long time. I
have over half a dozen high-performance imaging products in the works and,
at this point, all of them have Xilinx FPGA's in them.

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Martin Euredjian

To send private email:
0_0_0_0_@pacbell.net
where
"0_0_0_0_" = "martineu"

"Austin Lesea" <Austin.Lesea@xilinx.com> wrote in message
news:3F7DB8E8.A11339E0@xilinx.com...
Martin,

I am sorry you had a bad experience.

I will ask about it. I had heard from others that this particular course
was a
good one (some of my own staff have taken it), so I am hoping that your
experience was not the course, but perhaps the instructor (still
unfortunate,
and not acceptable).

Austin

Martin Euredjian wrote:

I recently took the "Advanced FPGA Implementation (v6)" Instructor-Led
Course and came out of it with a fair bit of dissappointment. I don't
want
to engage in Xilinx-bashing but it bothers me that the course was simply
not
worthy of the title it was given.

The only reason I might get something out of it will be because I will
pour
over the 500 page book on my own and experiment for many, many hours.
The
class boiled down to a bunch of slides (a very small subset of the book,
maybe 20%) being read out loud with a degree of re-interpretation. The
labs
were based on an obscure design that was not introduced at all. So, all
you
could do in the alloted time was type from the book like a robot and
move
on. No real learning took place there.

I took the course because, after a two-year effort --starting from
scratch--
to learn FPGA's, I thought that an advanced course taught by an expert
in
the field would be a great way to take my skills up a notch or two. I
needed to get to that proverbial last few percent and, frankly, I also
felt
stuck with regards to timing optimization, floorplanning and other
advanced
areas. I thought that an "advanced" course would be taught by a peer
who'd
offer the sort of insight that only comes from significant experience in
the
field and, yes, inside information. That is certainly not what
happened. I
can read slides just as well as the next guy. I don't need to pay
$1,000,
travel and burn two days' work to endure that experience.

So, I wonder. Was this a fluke? Are the other coursed different,
better,
worst? Are Altera's courses better? It seems that Xilinx contracts out
the
trainig to a third party (a company called "Technically Speaking". I
heard
that Altera chooses to use insiders. Is this true? Does it make a
difference?

Thanks,

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Martin Euredjian

To send private email:
0_0_0_0_@pacbell.net
where
"0_0_0_0_" = "martineu"

 

[Theron Hicks]

Lest there be any confusion, I was not commenting on the classes. I was
talking about documentation being unnecessarily difficult to sort through.
I am sorry if I gave the indication that I was refencing the classes. I
have not taken any of the classes. Documentation is my main frustration
area. Even then, _if_ I make contact with someone at Xilinx, I alomost
always get a solution eventually. But wouldn'y it be cheaper if I could get
the answer without that human intervention at Xilinx.
Theron

"Austin Lesea" <Austin.Lesea@xilinx.com> wrote in message
news:3F81809A.6E6788AF@xilinx.com...

Theron, Martin,

We have a number of folks actively researching this issue, The class
mentioned
turns out to be one of the most popular (from what the surveys from the
attendees
say), and the one that gets very high marks from the attendees also.

The instructor has taught this (as well as other courses) for 6 years, and
also gets
very high marks in his reviews.

It is extrememly important to us to discover what happened in this case,
as it seems
very unusual, and not in keeping with the survey results, and comments
from other
attendees.

One bad review posted here does a lot of damage: and we are concerned
especially
when we have hundreds of glowing reviews for the same class/instructor!

Austin


"Theron Hicks (Terry)" wrote:

I agree with Martin! I can't speak for the classes, but the rest is
definitely
true. I hope someone at Xilinx is listening. There is no doubt (at
least in my
mind) that Xilinx has some great FPGAs, etc. The software seems to be
fairly
well done, although it could use some improvement. The area of
improvement is
in simple, useable documentation. If I need to check three or for
different
areas for a full picture of what it taakes to get a job done, can you at
least
create a link between the areas. Xilinx could save a bundle in tech
support, if
they would just improve the documentation. It might even get them a few
more
customers. It generally is not a good idea to PO the customer.
(Usually Xilinx
does not do that.)

Theron Hicks

Martin Euredjian wrote:

Maybe so. Hart to tell at this point. Certainly the material in the
book
would open the door to very interesting and useful discussion of
advanced
topics, none of which were explored, some were recited, others skipped
over.

I think there are two groups within your company that might need a
flame
(not a match) lit under their chairs: web design and
education/documentation.

The website can be incredibly retarded and just not up to par with
what good
website design folks can do today. Sure, it's expensive to hire these
heavy
hitters, but Xilinx can afford it.

I only have one sample of the education group's output and, as you
learned,
they didn't put on a good show as far as I am concerned.

I think there are huge gaping holes in the available documentation and
devices are getting increasingly more complex. I think there's a need
to
address this --by experts, not fresh grads-- and it's not being done.

Some of these topics might include floorplanning, design optimization,
timing optimization, FPGA Editor, design flow optimization and
automation
(XFLOW, scripting, command-line tricks, etc.). I'm not talking about
being
able to download a document describing the various available timing
constraints, for example, but a practical, in-the-trenches set of docs
treating these topics in order to support designers in both adopting
and
succesfully utilizing these devices in an already difficult
marketplace.

Within the next few months I'll probably have a need to hire a couple
of
FPGA/Embedded guys, and the realization that I can't seem to rely on
even
sending them to a manufacturer-provided course in order to enhance
their
ability to generate accurate designs that perform well is what
triggered
some of my concern.

Still, this is not a Xilinx putdown but rather costructive criticism.
I
love the chips and will probably continue to use them for a long time.
I
have over half a dozen high-performance imaging products in the works
and,
at this point, all of them have Xilinx FPGA's in them.

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Martin Euredjian

To send private email:
0_0_0_0_@pacbell.net
where
"0_0_0_0_" = "martineu"

"Austin Lesea" <Austin.Lesea@xilinx.com> wrote in message
news:3F7DB8E8.A11339E0@xilinx.com...
Martin,

I am sorry you had a bad experience.

I will ask about it. I had heard from others that this particular
course
was a
good one (some of my own staff have taken it), so I am hoping that
your
experience was not the course, but perhaps the instructor (still
unfortunate,
and not acceptable).

Austin

Martin Euredjian wrote:

I recently took the "Advanced FPGA Implementation (v6)"
Instructor-Led
Course and came out of it with a fair bit of dissappointment. I
don't
want
to engage in Xilinx-bashing but it bothers me that the course was
simply
not
worthy of the title it was given.

The only reason I might get something out of it will be because I
will
pour
over the 500 page book on my own and experiment for many, many
hours.
The
class boiled down to a bunch of slides (a very small subset of the
book,
maybe 20%) being read out loud with a degree of re-interpretation.
The
labs
were based on an obscure design that was not introduced at all.
So, all
you
could do in the alloted time was type from the book like a robot
and
move
on. No real learning took place there.

I took the course because, after a two-year effort --starting from
scratch--
to learn FPGA's, I thought that an advanced course taught by an
expert
in
the field would be a great way to take my skills up a notch or
two. I
needed to get to that proverbial last few percent and, frankly, I
also
felt
stuck with regards to timing optimization, floorplanning and other
advanced
areas. I thought that an "advanced" course would be taught by a
peer
who'd
offer the sort of insight that only comes from significant
experience in
the
field and, yes, inside information. That is certainly not what
happened. I
can read slides just as well as the next guy. I don't need to pay
$1,000,
travel and burn two days' work to endure that experience.

So, I wonder. Was this a fluke? Are the other coursed different,
better,
worst? Are Altera's courses better? It seems that Xilinx
contracts out
the
trainig to a third party (a company called "Technically Speaking".
I
heard
that Altera chooses to use insiders. Is this true? Does it make
a
difference?

Thanks,

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Martin Euredjian

To send private email:
0_0_0_0_@pacbell.net
where
"0_0_0_0_" = "martineu"

 

[Austin Lesea]

Martin,

We appreciate the feedback.

However, your comment that "you would not send anyone to the classes" really
hurts. That goes beyond your opinion of this one class, and indicts the whole
program (unfairly, IMHO).

Your description sounds like the folks in the class you were in were not at the
right pre-requisite level, which means a great deal of frustration for the
lecturer, and frustration for anyone in the class who expected the material to
be useful. Again, I am only trying to see what went wrong (and give everyone
the benefit of the doubt).

Like I said, we are looking into this.

Please give Xilinx educational services another look in the future, as our main
interest is to enable the student to learn as fast as possible how to get their
designs up, running, and in production.

Austin



Martin Euredjian wrote:

"Austin Lesea" wrote:

One bad review posted here does a lot of damage: and we are concerned
especially
when we have hundreds of glowing reviews for the same class/instructor!

Please understand that I meant this to be constructive criticism, meant to
help improve things, not cause damage.

Let me give you my opinion as to why you have so many glowing reviews, at
least from the group I was with.

In short: Corporate students.

Pretty much everyone else at the class was from the same company. They had
been sent out on what I like to call a "corporate training tour". It's a
fun break away from the office and you get to learn something to boot.

These guys took a number of courses during the same trip. At least one (and
probably more) of them was fresh out of school. I had a couple of good
conversations with him during breaks and realized that he did not belong in
that class at all. When I asked how much FPGA experience he had, he replied
that he'd just done the usual labs at school, not much more.

I can't comment on every single person at the class, but you can learn a lot
about them based on the questions they ask. Again, it didn't seem that they
had enough time at the wheel. When the team leader is asking questions
about the I/O of a DCM block in an advanced class I pretty much know that
they didn't have a decent look through the VirtexII data sheet. Another
couple of guys were asking about how to configure Select I/O in order to
have series termination. They were also asking about good development
boards, etc.

In general terms, to the uninitiated, the class was wonderful. If you are
too lazy to learn the basics (ok, to be fair, maybe didn't have the time?)
then the class exposed you to a lot of interesting information that, if
researched further, would result in valuable learning (wheen you are coming
from that context). For someone without the experience this class was
rocket science and you probably left in awe of all that's possible.

Then there's the "I'm happy to be out of the office" effect. Everyone is
happy to do that. At least when you are part of a large corporate entity
and you are very detached from the financials. You'll probably get raving
reviews out of this group as well.

Lastly, it takes caring and ... well ... balls to say what I'm saying. What
does a rank-and-file guy gain by saying that the class wasn't adequate?
Zilch.

As a small business owner who actually pays the bills, designs hardware,
writes code, etc., etc., I'm intimately aware of the value of time and
money. I came to the class with a completely different frame of reference.
That's why you are not getting my stamp of approval by default, which is
what I think most attendees tend to do.

Thanks for looking into it,

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Martin Euredjian

To send private email:
0_0_0_0_@pacbell.net
where
"0_0_0_0_" = "martineu"

 

[Martin Euredjian]

"Austin Lesea" wrote:

However, your comment that "you would not send anyone to the classes"
really
hurts. That goes beyond your opinion of this one class, and indicts the
whole
program (unfairly, IMHO).

I looked back through my posts to see what you are referring to. The best I
could find was:

"Within the next few months I'll probably have a need to hire a couple of
FPGA/Embedded guys, and the realization that I can't seem to rely on even
sending them to a manufacturer-provided course in order to enhance their
ability to generate accurate designs that perform well is what triggered
some of my concern."

I don't think that I said I would not send anyone to a class. Particularly
not in a terminal sense. I sincerly believe that there's a lot of value in
sending people to good courses. I've been to a few where, in the span of a
week, I went from able-but-disorganized to knowing exactly where to go and
huge gains in productivity. So, clearly, nobody in their right mind can
state conlusively and absolutely that any and all classes are worthless. At
least that's my experience.

I have no doubt that Xilinx offers great courses. The begineer courses are
probably very valuable in getting people up and running quickly. I know
that when I was getting started I good kick in the right direction would
have saved tons of time and money.

I think that the problem might be that there was a disconnect between what
the class was supposed to be and the level of experience/knowledge of the
instructor (or, at least, what came out during the class). I'd expect a
class tagged as "advanced" to be taught by someone like you, or, perhaps,
outside experts in the field, some of whom participate in this n.g., like
Ray Andraka. That's what I thought the class would be about. A humbling,
yet enlightening experience. I would have expected to dive into some juicy
and difficult topics, like, how to layout a folded FIR filter to improve
performance. Or, the advantages/disadvantages of using SRL's instead of
FF's for the main pipe of the filter. Data path alignment techniques. You
get the idea. If the course cost $5K, so be it. Money is not the issue
here.

I'll repeat a few lines from a prior post:

"Still, this is not a Xilinx putdown but rather constructive criticism. I
love the chips and will probably continue to use them for a long time. I
have over half a dozen high-performance imaging products in the works and,
at this point, all of them have Xilinx FPGA's in them."

Your description sounds like the folks in the class you were in were not
at the
right pre-requisite level, which means a great deal of frustration for the
lecturer, and frustration for anyone in the class who expected the
material to
be useful.

Maybe so.

A few suggestions:

1- Have an online quiz of some sort as a way to grade potential students.

2- Have detailed bios on the instructors, including level of design
experience, etc.

3- Make class documents (books, slides) available for purchase prior to
committing to a class. Credit the cost towards taking the class within a
given period of time.

4- Offer the ability to have registered students send questions to the
instructor prior to attending the class. Perhaps a statement of who they
are and what they want to get out of the class.

5- Have students describe current designs they may be working on and how
this relates to wanting to take a class.

6- An advanced class should probably be a week-long class. Maybe that was
the main problem here.


--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Martin Euredjian

To send private email:
0_0_0_0_@pacbell.net
where
"0_0_0_0_" = "martineu"

 

[Ray Andraka]

Part of the problem is that they (not just Xilinx) hire technical presenters that
may or may not have strong design experience or a strong teaching background.
Obviously, if the presenter hasn't wrestled with the tools on a real design, he is
likely not going to be able to go too much beyond what is on the slides. There is
a good chance that the person teaching the class learned the tools on the course
materials and practiced with some canned labs. I would want to know who the
seminar presenter is and exactly what his qualifications are before signing up for
the course.

Unfortunately much of the expertise carried by the guru is the result of years of
gruelling experience with real designs. While that experience can be highlighted,
there is not really any easy way to transfer such depth of knowledge in a 2 day
presentation. It is also difficult to capture that experience and distill it into
a set of tips and rules that can be addressed in just two days. The presentation
material is generally not prepared by the presenter in most cases either: it is a
company wide presentation used by a number of presenters. Unfortunately, it has to
be that way in order to provide a standard course and still meet the fairly high
demand for the course. The problem of course, is that the material does not
necessarily match the presenter's experience. Some of the things in it will
invariably be new or done in a different way than the way the presenter handles
that problem, and some of the material will be perceived as the wrong way to do
things by some presenters. Hopefully the slides and any accompanying material
provide enough material to add value to the presentation, otherwise I doubt there
would be enough depth to have more than a feel-good value that would soon evaporate
after the class. The bottom line is that these 2 day wonder seminars can really
only serve to make you aware that there are techniques out there, and hopefully
give you guidance to find the information you need.

--

Mike Treseler wrote:

Martin Euredjian wrote:

I'll have to respectfully disagree with some of what you said.

That's what the newsgroup is all about.

. . .
Then there's the issue of efficiency. I've taken a few very well taught
courses over the years where, within a few days, you go from a rudimentary
understanding of the subject to having a very clear and organized insight
from which to build. This isn't so much due to the verbal tradition I was
speaking of, but rather because someone who truly understands the subject
AND is a good teacher lays out the subject right there, in front of you, to
assimilate and build from. Good teachers are worth 1000 books. No doubt
about it.

--
I agree that instruction from a qualified and interested expert
with recent industrial experience is ideal.

The practical problem is finding such an expert who is
also in the business of teaching.

So, if you attend a good course, you can be on your way very quickly. It's
a matter of efficiency. And, while it might be true that all in the
universe could be learned from books and, these days, the Internet, there's
a real imporant factor we must not forget: the business equation. If what
you do is a hobby then, by all means, burn time experimenting and reading
through hundreds of documents, surfing the Web or playing with dev boards.
However, in the context of a business that needs to get product out the
door, it is much more efficient to pay someone to show you the ropes quickly
and then get on with your work.

--
I agree that it makes good business sense to pay a
consultant or take a course that teaches you something
faster than you could learn in yourself. However, my
experience with such seminars is that this just
doesn't happen beyond the introductory tutorials.

I set aside an hour or two a day for focused self-study, and
I don't believe this has adversely affected the time
it takes me to get working designs out the door. In fact I
think it helps.

Let me ask you this. Do you think that spending 45 minutes listing all of
the I/O out of a DCM block has a place in an advanced class? Or how many
clocks can be distributed in a Virtex II?

I agree with you. This is exactly what happens.
This is where I walk out and why I no longer attend.

How about getting into how to
properly start-up a DCM with real-world issues and code?

Yes. A little more *code* please.
Design entry, inference, and simulation are routinely neglected.

$1,000 is a lot of money for a printed version of PowerPoint slides. I
would gladly pay $5,000 for a class that had the right content. Money is
not the issue here. If you tell me you'll teach an advanced class for $1K,
then do it. If that class requires $10K, then tell me so.

Maybe other designers will post some good experiences with seminars or classes.
I wish I had some to report.

-- Mike Treseler

--
--Ray Andraka, P.E.
President, the Andraka Consulting Group, Inc.
401/884-7930 Fax 401/884-7950
email ray@andraka.com
http://www.andraka.com

"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin, 1759