[PLUG] Article in Linux Today about M$ kill UNIX at Universities..

[James Pollard]

Quoting Jonathan Sergent (sergent@ETLA.NET):
> /// James Pollard <pollard@cs.purdue.edu>:
>  ] you are probably right.  if only we could all design software only for
>  ] programmers and still all get jobs.  eventually some of us will have to
>  ] write programs for the crummy platform that is windows, but that is a
>  ] separate subject altogether.
> 
> That's just my point -- everyone has to pick up new platforms and tools
> quite regularly.  If you're going to have to do it in the real world,
> you might as well get good at doing it at Purdue, so the more experience,
> the better.
> 
learning a new platform, no prob.  learning a new language, no prob.  doing
both while at the same time trying to learn the fundamentals of programming
is a different story.  anyway, it has been a long time since i've
taken comparable courses to those, and i didn't take them here so perhaps
the lab assistants are able to help you out.  i just remember that
the first time i took a college level programming course, it was my first time
on a multi-user OS, my first time using VI, my first time trying to understand
what the heck the compiler was saying to me, and i was only going to Pascal
having some Basic programming experience (very similar language).  i can't
imagine from that same standpoint trying to go to java, but maybe it is
easier than it seems.  and i don't mean that it has to be easy, i just mean
that it should be doable by the people they consider up to par.

> Yeah, it makes the course more challenging if you haven't seen Unix
> before, but if it was all easy, then there would be little point in
> paying all that cash to do it.  Hopefully you go to school to learn things
> (although it's a cliche, I'll throw out the phrase "learn how to learn"),
> and to get experience, not just to get a piece of paper that says how
> good your exam and project scores were.
> 
i can't comment on the difficulty of the course, as i did not take it here.
i fully understand the need for a challenging course, but i'm sure you also
understand that even good students and smart people have a limit on what
they can learn in X amount of time.  perhaps i am wrong about this threshhold,
since i haven't taken the course, i'll hold my commentary.

> Don't claim that the tools you use in CS 180 are the right choice
> because they are the same ones you will be using once you graduate.
> Do you honestly think that in today's world, in four years, they won't
> have changed so much as to be barely recognizable as the same product?
>
and don't claim that they're the wrong choice just because they're not the ones
that you'd use.  if companies are using GUI java tools, they will probably
be more like J++ than VI.  again, this is something they can adjust to either
way, so i don't think that this should be a factor, except that most of these
students already have windows computers at home/dorm, and i imagine that the
labs here get pretty busy.  additionally, now at least they don't have to fight
the crowd at ENAD.  those computers that they got were probably able to have
linux or solaris thrown on them as well, which i guess is the hope that you
had?  btw, i don't believe that our department officially supports linux,
so i'm betting it'd be solaris that'd be on them.

-Jim