

Tekpub Has Been Acquired - fekberg
http://wekeroad.com/2013/10/30/tekpub/expanding

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avenger123
Definitely congratulations to Rob!

I have been a TekPub annual subscriber since 2010 and its definitely been the
case that its quality over quantity.

PluralSight is also good depending on the author.

It's obvious that some of the authors are solely doing it for the money and
these tend to have the lower production values.

Regardless, for what you are paying with PluralSight, there is enough quality
content that something will be worthwhile.

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locusm
Yes this. With Pluralsight you just tend to follow certain authors. Tekpub was
never hit and miss - majority of content was of really high quality.

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theflork
which authors would you recommend? I've only seen Scott Allen's asp.net mvc4 -
his explanations are very clear and easy to follow but he's def not a
passionate speaker.

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pg_bot
First, congrats Rob on the exit.

That being said, I may just have to get into the screen casting business since
pluralsight's quality is terrible. They have no sense of editing or production
values, and refuse to let you download the screencasts that you are paying
for. Destroy all software and railscasts are on hiatus, and with peepcode
acquired (by pluralsight), is there anyone left who is producing high quality
content?

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suhair
rubytapas ([http://www.rubytapas.com/](http://www.rubytapas.com/)) seems good

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robconery
It's outstanding - wish I had Avdi's pipes!

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stirno
I do hope this will raise the quality of Pluralsight content production -- Rob
has, for me anyway, really set the bar for how content should be presented.

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jbigelow76
Congrats to Rob. Tekpub started out skewed toward .NET related technologies
but gradually went more in the open source direction, his original Node series
really helped me get going with the technology and embracing Javascript more.

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topfunky
Congrats to Rob! I'm the founder of PeepCode (also acquired by Pluralsight a
few months ago). I feel like I've been traded up to an all-star team who is
about to win the Super Bowl. Pluralsight is a great company and there's lots
of great stuff about to be launched over the next few months.

~~~
robconery
Thanks Geoffrey! I'm hoping we can do something together soon - it's been a
long time in coming :)

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weavie
Am I missing something?

Clearly I am - these online courses are hugely popular, it blows me away
seeing how many people have paid for certain courses on Udemy. I've tried
running through a few courses on Coursera and whilst they are interesting they
are incredibly slow. I end up running out of patience and just searching the
net and reading up on the topics in about 10% of the time.

I just can't see how watching these videos provide any more value than working
though a good book that can be had for less than half the price.

Are these paid for courses significantly better than the free MOOC courses? If
so, how?

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jamra
I remember Rob making a comment that .Net is his most popular topic.

From a dotnet point of view, it is much easier for many programmers to watch
videos instead of reading a book. For one, language is not as big a barrier
because you have a visual example to go along with his narrative.

The biggest problem I personally have with dotnet is the necessity to know all
the nuances of whichever stack you are developing on.

In learning MVC, Rob goes over every single issue a programmer may have in
creating a web site, circumventing those moments where you get stuck trying to
find out how to change how routing works. He also goes over a token based
login that completely throws out the default dotnet implementation.

In addition, he goes over creating a support site, dependency injection, and
lots of other things that you would have to be an active member of the MVC
community to even know it existed.

He even posts his code to github. Basically, Rob acts as a mediator between
the dotnet world and the open source linuxy way of doing things. Many of his
comparisons are with Ruby on Rails. When I talk with people I know who code in
C#, they hardly spend time reading about new trends in HTML and javascript and
prefer to get the easy way by learning the dotnet way of doing things.

As a dotnet developer, you (and me too) put yourself into a position of
ignorance. Then you wait for someone more senior to come out with a simple
method that you could use for rapid prototyping. You rely on that senior
person not because you can't code but because you really don't know the
nuances of the framework you are leaning on. This refusal to learn the bare
bones of HTML and adopt some micro framework creates the phenomenon where you
are kind of hosed into grabbing the quickest path to productivity.

Edit: I edited quite a few things for clarity. Probably shouldn't submit so
fast.

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sequence7
> As a dotnet developer, you (and me too) put yourself into a position of
> ignorance. Then you wait for someone more senior to come out with a simple
> method that you could use

> for rapid prototyping. You rely on that senior person not because you can't
> code but because you really don't know the nuances of the framework you are
> leaning on. This

> refusal to learn the bare bones of HTML and adopt some micro framework
> creates the phenomenon where you are kind of hosed into grabbing the
> quickest path to productivity.

I couldn't disagree more and I would really like it if people would stop
spreading this kind of nonsense. Being a .Net developer does not make you
ignorant, some people choose to be ignorant that has nothing to do with the
technology stack they're using. I am a .Net deveoper and I absolutely do not
put myself in a position of ignorance, I actively work to reduce my ignorance
on a daily basis and so do all the other good, .Net or not, developers I know.

~~~
jamra
I'm making my statement based on my experiences in C# and web. I fight daily
battles with people about this. The fear of Javascript is rampant. It doesn't
matter if you can save a programmer's time and protect him from having to lay
out grids from <insert 3rd party grid manufacturer>. They can't leave their
Microsoft shell.

If you take MVC out of the box, add in Entity Framework, and try to create a
web site, you'll run into a few issues. Entity Framework is god awfully slow
and takes waaay too much to get up and running. Dapper on the other hand took
30 minutes and is blazingly fast in comparison. It took me a while to make
that sale to my coworkers. I keep hearing the argument that Microsoft is
hardened and that Enterprise has some kind of magic support. Some of my
coworkers are quite clever and quite familiar with any given Microsoft stack.
Maybe you're the kind of guy who, like me, thinks about the best (and easiest)
solution for the problem and spends time learning the underlying technology.
The problem I am stating is not that all Microsoft programmers are ignorant.
The problem I am stating is that the Microsoft technology stack actively tries
to get you to use their highly generalized objects instead of just solving the
problem on your own. They want you to lock yourself into their system so you
stay put. It's like a software roach motel. If you just used simple
Javascript, your server stack could be fairly interchangeable, but when you go
the Microsoft way, you're going to spend so much time learning their approach,
you may not have the drive to liberate yourself from your shackles.

I think the best way to sum up the problems I had with MVC in a single example
is the HTML helpers. Instead of using simple Jquery or javascript to talk to
the server, you start with @HTML.Form and try to make all these nonsensical
options do what you want it to do. If you take a basic javascript course on
codeschool.com, you'll be able to write that yourself in a day. Why not just
use the HTML helpers? You'll find that as your app becomes more complicated,
they limit you from achieving your goal.

I just spent a good part of today fixing our internal Halloween costume
contest voting website. The programmer who started it was fresh out of college
so I hardly blame him. The task was assigned to someone else and he kind of
froze up on me. I created some jquery ajax requests and updated some UI
elements with Javascript. I used some CSS and vuala, I had the web app working
displaying all contest pics. I would consider what I had to do the most very
basic kind of programming. Why couldn't my developer handle it? He was trying
to use MVC form helpers. Now he's walking next to me complaining that he
doesn't know web well enough. It would have taken him literally one day to
learn how to write $.ajax({ url: 'Home/Vote', success: function(r){ ...

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poissonpie
Wow, did not see this one coming. Congrats to Rob.

I have mixed feelings about it though, I can see that it's a good move for Rob
- he really has a knack for production and if he gets to do more of that, it's
better for the subscribers, but at the same time, I kind of liked the way
tekpub was essentially a one man show.

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jcculb
Also liked how you could get the individual classes on an ala carte basis.
Unfortunately that will go away with Pluralsight.

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martin1b
Congrats Rob! I've had both tekpub and Pluralsight subscriptions over the
years and was getting ready to sign up for one again. This makes the decision
much easier. I always loved Tekpub's real-world style of teaching. Robs work
over the years has really helped me grow as a developer. Joining forces will
really help the development community as a whole. Great move Rob and Aaron!!

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xtrumanx
What about Pluralsight subscribers? Do they get access to Tekpub?

I think Peepcode got acquired by Pluralsight and I don't think Pluralsight
subscribers got access to Peepcode content.

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jbigelow76
I see all (I think) the Peepcode screencasts in Pluralsight, just search for
author Geoffrey Grosenbach.

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xtrumanx
Oh, I thought they were going to keep the sites separate.

Presumably this list[0] contains all of Peepcode's content on Pluralsight?

[0] [http://pluralsight.com/training/Authors/Details/geoffrey-
gro...](http://pluralsight.com/training/Authors/Details/geoffrey-grosenbach)

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sergiotapia
Congratulations to Rob! Tekpub is the reason I could learn ASP.Net MVC and is
ultimately the main catalyst for my current job marketability. I wish him the
very best!

