To follow up on Tenchi's comments.
The first 3 chapters are basically either Dev Guide intro or Flanagan. They are important and that is why I suggested a prerequisite such as Flanagan.
Chapter 4, of course is specific to Pronto as it is how Pronto uses scopes with regard to activities, pages, etc...
I could write a book on Chapter 9 - Debugging. However, you can only tell folks so many times to use try/catch with a Diagnostic.log() in the catch to find their page or activity script error. ;-)
Chapter 7 is too loose. What is Digital IO? What is Simple Protocol Implementation? Barry has a doc on Serial Comms on his site that should likely be a prerequisite for material covered here.
Chapter 8 - Scraping Websites? Might this be better as processing XML?
In fact, no where in the syllabus is the ECMA-357 E4X covered. Maybe processing XML with embedded namespaces?
Chapter 5 - Where are dynamic widgets? The course appears to be geared toward PEPV2 usage and newer features but dynamic widgets are not mentioned. They differ from the predefined/created widgets in that if you don't manage cleanup properly, you have memory leaks that are not cleaned up until you exit the current activity.
There's also nothing here on "optimizing" your code for performance or eliminating errors. Specifically, I reference "Developing ProntoScript Libraries" which can be found in the Developer's Guide right-hand Sidebar once you login to ProntoScript area of Philips site. JSLint and code compression (not encryption) is covered here.
[Link: pronto.philips.com]User MUST be familiar with Ant to use the Philips build scripts. Maybe Ant should be another prerequisite (O'Reilly book). Yes, this Prontoscript development can be a beast and there are many thinks required to make a good script great. Optimizing for performance with regard to compilation time and variable names should not be overlooked.
And, while we are on this topic, ANYONE who is attending the course should be required to obtain both Level 1 and Level 2 Certification prior to attending. This should make them familiar enough with the editor, database, and the Extenders (Level 2 Certification has good stuff about neat ways to wire up RFX9600 dry contacts for power sense / relays that I think really should have been in the product documentation).
Sorry for rambling here but I as tenchi points out, there's a lot of material you want covered. To make the cost of the course valuable, the students should come prepared to learn. Why is that? Due to the amount of material, the instructor will need to know what baseline to expect from the students.
In effect, you are asking someone to come in and teach Programming 101, 102, 201, and 202 in a 1-2 day format which, IMO, is not possible without a baseline. And, what if the student has never even installed PEPV2? If they don't even have an idea about what the editor is and how to use it, the instructor will spend more time "hand-holding" those folks and will not be as productive with the ones who are "prepared".
Again, this is my opinion, take it as you like but I think if you want your course to be productive, there is merit here.
Lyndel
:-)
