Matt Writes and Confuses

Yesterday Ralph Grabowski wrote his views on free software. Matt Lombard’s used his comment to take a dig at trial software. He said, “The best way to learn something is to sit with someone who knows it so you can ask questions. Self teaching generally doesn’t amount to anything more than playing.”

And today Matt’s blog (“Matt Writes”) has a post letting us know that he has created a 150 minute video training course on SolidWorks. Correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t this video course self learning. I doubt Matt or anyone else is going to sit with the person playing the video to answer his questions.

There is reason why we software developers add step by step tutorials, sample files, videos, etc. into our trial software. People who choose not to use them and prefer to “sit with someone to ask questions” are missing the point of it all.

I only hope that the people who are thinking of paying Matt for his training course do not share his views.

And by the way, although Matt questions the effectiveness of trial software he urges you to download a sample lesson from his video course. I wonder why.