Increasing traffic on PGD...

[LP]

Here in Slovenia none of our universities doesn't teach programing in any of the pascal dialects. All that you can learn in our universities is Java, .NET and C based languages. And even teaching of theese languages is of poor quality becouse they teach the mostly same stuf as they did 10 years ago. So when most of our students come out of school they still lacks some needed knowledge to become sucsessful programers on their own.

Unfortunately, it is true for Java, .NET and C part. Another unfortunate fact is that here in Mexico the highest paid Software Engineering jobs require Java and/or .NET knowledge, which is probably why they teach these languages in the first place, to ensure student's quick entry into business (I see announcements for these jobs on daily basis).

However, I don't agree with the second part. Ex-students of my 1999-2004 generation from Computing Systems department are all working now in top places in the software development industry, some here in Mexico and others in U.S.

Another problem in Slovenia is that all of theese universities are full. So if you didn't have excelent grades in highschool you don't even have a chance to sign in.
Also here in Slovenia it is werry hard to get any scholarship at all. And even if you do get it, it won't cover all the expenses for study. So many students are forced to do parttime jobs during study. And this means les time and energy for study itself.

You can always try to get to the universities in other countries. Yes, it may be hard to pull it off on your own (living and studying alone in foreign land), but on the bright side you get to know new cultures, make new friends and later on it will be a bonus for the career. In addition, it's never too late to get the degree, when I was studying 6 years ago for M.Sc., most "classmates" (it was research-oriented, so we were technically researchers) were like 20 years older than me. Not to mention my research for D.Sc., where only few people were present and were all > 50 years old.

That's only good for students and academics, and more hassle that getting Visual Studio or Eclipse (which can be download with no fuss).

Yes, I agree with that and it's unfortunate for Embarcadero. However, if you have used Express editions of Visual Studio, you should know that you don't get 64-bit support as well as other platforms such as Windows Phone, so it's very similar to Delphi Starter, except that it is for free. (Honestly, I wouldn't use Delphi Starter even if it was free because of the above limitations).

How, I don't doubt there are good institutions, but "many" is another story entirely, and anyway, that's only for the student side, and only for those students that have taken such a course, so it is only an option for a small minority.

I've never seen such an argument before that contained in itself more logical fallacies than phrases. Cherry picking, base rate neglect, illicit major and hasty generalization among others. Please don't do that.

As you just said, these course take a lot of time. Some require a background. Many are heavy on theory, light on practical aspects, etc. They're just not (and can't be) and alternative to more focused articles. They cater a different crowd with different needs.

Same as above.

"Good" or "bad" institution is subjective and a trend of black and white thinking (yet another fallacy). They are simply institutions with the goal of teaching students. Subjects from computer sciences are present in almost every area of institutions: management, accounting, physics, chemistry, architecture and so on. Yes, you can learn by yourself reading some articles on Internet, but instead of learning random bits by yourself, you can let other people professionally certified to help and guide you with the learning process; in fact, both are not mutually exclusive: you can learn at university and *still* read articles you want.

As for your "time argument", I don't believe there is such thing as "easy" or "quick "money. A person who worked hard and long, who invested time and effort into learning and becoming a professional will usually get higher salary and better jobs than a person who did not. (even though there are always rare exceptions.)

In addition, education is not just programming. If you don't educate yourself enough, you may fall prey easily to Crown manipulation, Brainwashing among other techniques very common on today's mass media including TV, radio, social networks and so on. (And guess what? Many of these techniques are based on careful injection of fallacies!)

[By the way, the Wikipedia links I've provided to crowd manipulation and brainwashing in English are quite biased and misleading themselves. Check other language versions with the Google translator, which are more meaningful.]

What I'm saying is that I don't think PGD should assume a public constituted of software engineering PhDs ;-)

Referring to my point, you are making a logical fallacy called "Appeal to ridicule". I never said what you are mocking (which is disrespectful, by the way), I just said that basic programming skills are taught in the majority of institutions now so instead of reinventing the wheel it is better to focus on people that are already familiar with the language.

Also, there is an entire Delphi section in About web site dedicated to all sorts of programming tips, which is more than sufficient to get you started and even make you proficient in some areas that you may not be aware of.

Edit: Really, please check Delphi section in About.com, it has articles for beginners to start from zero. What else do you need?