

Try iOS: iPhone App Development Course - wmboy
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/eallam/try-ios-iphone-app-development-course

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eggbrain
Code School is a great company, and this web course will definitely help bring
iPhone development to many users, rather than only ones with Mac's and Xcode.

That being said, I feel... Conflicted about a company, whose goal is to make
profit, using Kickstarter as a way to raise money to build the course. When I
was supporting up-and-comers on Kickstarter, it felt like I was helping the
little guy be on the same level of the big corporations. But with this, I
become worried that when companies don't have enough money, or don't want to
deal with the risk of product development, they will make a Kickstarter, which
has no real requirement for disclosure of where the money goes, or on actually
delivering a product, and build a profit making service on the backs of their
customers up front in exchange for the possibility of a coupon off the course.

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nhangen
I feel exactly the same way. I pay for Codeschool because I enjoy playing
around with it, and would have assumed that my payments would be used to fund
the development and advancement of their curriculum. To see this leaves me
feeling soured on the whole thing.

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phereford
I feel the exact same way.

What's funny/weird about this sentiment is that if Envy Labs/Code School got
$2mil+ in funding from an investor I would be totally cool with it and happy
for them. The fact that they are crowdfunding while I am a paying customer
just rubs me the wrong way.

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bira
Think it this way: crowdfunding the development of this new Code School
project, YOU are the investor.

Does it really feel that bad?

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malandrew
Not really. You aren't able to make a return (exit or dividend) on future
profits from such a course when sold to others after development is complete.

sponsorship !== investing

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rsobers
I love Code School, but why use Kickstarter for this? Why not just build the
course and charge for it afterwards?

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CodeCube
Do _you_ have 20 grand lying around to buy a server farm of mac minis? ;)

In order to offer the course, they need to build the infrastructure ... and in
order to build the infrastructure, one needs capital to even start on the
venture. In the past, you would go to a venture capitalist to front the money.
Kickstarter offers a way of doing that without the strings attached.

I find no qualms with this usage of kickstarter

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Aqua_Geek
> Do you have 20 grand lying around to buy a server farm of mac minis?

Why start out with a whole farm? Why not start small - with just a few? Surely
you don't need all of them up front in order to build out the infrastructure
for them. Then, as $$ starts coming in from sign-ups, you start provisioning
more and more of them.

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envex
How would you feel if you paid for the course, but their current farm wasn't
working because of all the new signups, or people trying to do the same
course?

They want to build a big farm to begin with to handle the load.

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Aqua_Geek
Agreed - I'd be pretty upset.

Alternately, they could take (free) signups for beta slots. Once your number
comes up (i.e. when they provision enough machines to support the next batch
of users), you hand over cash and get access.

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nicholassmith
Code Schools courses have been uniformly excellent, and $25 is a steal for one
of them.

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wmboy
Yeah, their Rails for Zombies series is one of the best options for learning
beginner Ruby on Rails.

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doktrin
Really? I didn't find the whole "code in a browser window" experience to be
particularly helpful, nor in any way reflective of an actual development
environment.

The production value of their videos is high, however.

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tluyben2
I find the dev-in-browser more interesting than the courses. Can you make a
service out of that?

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iamyohann
Whats the best IDE for development on linux? I'm using Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.
<http://www.voicejug.com>

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cnp
I'd me much more interested in a CodeSchool course on RubyMotion!

