I agree with this and several other posts.

I love to ski fast and hard on-piste and find it much more dynamic. But when there is powder to be found, then you can't beat a board. I've also done lots of off piste, ski touring and even Heli-skiing. Not done Heli-boarding yet, but haven't been to the US/Canada since learning to board.

Learning to board is a lot faster, where in ca. 3 days, you can be doing red runs easily. I'd add a couple things about learning to board:

1/ Wrist gaurds (as already mentioned) are a MUST.
2/ Helmet a must
3/ Bump pads, not a bad idea
4/ Back guards, probably not a bad idea

The big difference (IMO) when you fall on a board compared to skiing is, that when you fall on a board, it tends to be because you caught an edge!!! Or put more simply your board has changed into an anchor, with your feet attached, the result being your body hits the piste at the speed you were travelling at -OUCH.....

Skiing you can fall more gracefully and almost sit down into the fall.

When you fall on a board, DON'T try and use your hands to slow the impact, this is how you break things (wrists/arms), they sometimes teach you to almost dive forwards so you don't so much hit the piste directly but dive across it. Falling backwards tends to be had on the butt and the head especially if the piste is hard.

My pet hates on a snowboard is hard or icy piste's (I hate the sound of a board scrapping across this type of surface, and it's hard work) where on ski's its great.

One thing I usually try and teach people when skiing, is to imagine that you want to drop forward onto your knees, which obviously can't happen as the combination of the ski's and boots won't allow this (this can be demonatrationed by reaching forward and touch the tips then coming back up again unassisted. This will direct your weight to your chins, and the front of the boot applying pressure to the tips of the ski's. Keep the tips of the ski's under control and the tails will follow.

A good excercise to practise when skiing or boarding is to choose a suitable incline, stand parallel to it, then drop the tips (or front of board) down the slope (start with ca. 10 degrees), then turn back up to stop. Keep doing this and as your confidence grows let the speed gather more each time and/or increase the angle down the slope. Also combing this with side slipping (dropping the edge away from the slope) then stopping, using your edges. This will give you a good feel of the skis/board. Then try this on the other side.

Finally always try and stay within your capability, never ski/board alone, stop where it is safe to, have fun and stay safe.