Will CS Students Switch From Microsoft?

spotter writes: "There's an article in Newsweek International that talks about how Microsoft's tactics are turning off an entire generation of CS students from their products and increasing the fortunes of Linux." The article isn't deep or flawless, but hits on a major point: what students learn in school is key to what they go on to do.

Newsweek hasn't heard of KDE yet

[isdnip]

Wow! Programmers are working on a new program called KDE which will be released this spring! That's what the article says. I can't wait to try it out.
Maybe by next year they'll report on the 2000 USA elections.

Primitive screenshots

[Ironfist_ironmined]

they also seem to have some primitive screenshots of this here [kde.org].
I mean really, what civilised person would have their desktop like this [kde.org] rather than this [pcworld.com].

Re:Comp Sci. Students & MSFT

[fader]

I don't know how it is at most other places, but at the University I attend the labs run NetBSD and KDE2.

That's impossible -- you must be lying. Didn't you read the article?

Linux hackers from Germany and elsewhere are working on a Windows-like graphical interface for Linux PCs called KDE (for K Desktop Environment). They expect to release it this spring...

How can you be using KDE2 when KDE won't be released until spring? Now we know you're trolling. After all, what reason would MS NBC have to lie?

very consistent quality

[Dr. Awktagon]

[Microsoft's software] has some advantages: it is generally more consistent in quality ..

Yes, I suppose if there is one thing you can say about Microsoft's software, it's that the level of quality has been quite consistent.

No, you just don't understand

[roystgnr]

KDE 3 will be out this spring! Although KDE 1 and 2 are out, they should probably be ignored just like Windows before version 3, Internet Explorer before version 4, and so on. Hasn't Microsoft taught us that the first versions of any software are completely useless? That people who try them are just dooming themselves to expensive retraining and conversions when the interfaces and file formats all get switched around? Clearly this "KDE" thing must just be starting to work out the bugs, if they're not even at version 3 yet.

Re:maybe on your planet...

[ender81b]

microsoft showers us with donations of hardware for the labs, and software and books for the students. as well as contests, events, and has been incredibly helpful for our branch of the ACM. as for documentation, free copies of MSDN and all the microsoft press books you could ever want go a long way

Rule of Acquistion #98: Every man has his price.

=)

Re:No, you just don't understand

[Rcoonzz]

How can you compare Version numbers from two completely different projects?...amazing...hmm...I think I'm going to start my version numbers at 10...seems like a mature number...so everyone is going to think I have no bugs....( ya I'm trolling)...

Re:Visual Studio .NET rollout

[cscx]

Too bad I'm not in Ohio, sounds like a fun event to pass out Debian CDs at...

Did I mention that they make great GNU/Coasters?

Re:No, you just don't understand

[los furtive]

I think completely useless is just a little bit of an exaggeration, don't you?

Re:Comp Sci. Students & MSFT: VS

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? All I got in school was VD.

You should be studying!

[jamesmrankinjr]

Ever see Pinocchio (Disney version) when the fox and the cat convince Pinocchio to ditch school to play games, drink beer, and smoke cigars all day? Turns out there was a catch.

If you go after M$ free stuff and propoganda, garunteed they'll find a way to make an ass of you and extract their price in the end.

-jimbo

Re:It's nuts what Microsoft is doing to prevent th

[Hal-9001]

Solution: $35000 / 700 people = $50/person

Buy a boxed Linux/FreeBSD distribution for every person who attends. ;-)

Re:Comp Sci. Students & MSFT

[marktwain]

Good comment. I can't imagine why this link was even posted to Slashdot. The fact that it is positive RE Linux doesn't make it relevant. The article shows absolutely no suggestion that the writer did anything resembling serious research. Why timothy bothered to posted this I don't have a clue.

Re:It's nuts what Microsoft is doing to prevent th

[macrom]

Is it just me, or does this smack of a company that really, really, wants to protect its future interests?

It is just me, or does this smack of a company that really, really wants to buy its future customers?

Is it just me, or does this smack of a company that wants to give all of the college students legitimate copies of the software that they already downloaded from a P2P network?

greg

kegs of beer

[DABANSHEE]

& dwarfs walking arround with bowls of cocaine balanced on their heads

Ywh I know its been done before.

KDE just released?

[sabshire]

My favorite line....

Linux hackers from Germany and elsewhere are working on a Windows-like graphical interface for Linux PCs called KDE (for K Desktop Environment). They expect to release it this spring--free of charge

And all this time I have been using vaporware I guess... :)

Re:Corporate World loves experience

[Alex Belits]

Being able to communicate ideas clearly is a skill of technical communication. Being able to read between the lines of documents is a skill of bullshit filtering. None of them are social (unless you use a crazy definition of "social" as anything that involves interaction and a language, but then writing a program in C would be a "social" activity), they are part of technical competence, and engineers usually have them -- they would not be able to get educated enough to be an engineer otherwise.

Being able to run a group of programmers in a reasonable working conditions, shield them from crazy demands and explaining nontechnical issues are social skills that engineers value in managers but don't need to possess because this isn't their job.

Being able to participate in the company's politics at the expense of work, sweep conflicts under the carpet, assert "authority" in various counterproductive ways are social skills that most engineers lack and despise when faced with.

Being able to drink huge amounts of low-quality alcohol, behave like a pig toward the opposite sex, express the obedience to "authority" by offering sex, smoke crack and display other kinds of uncivilized human behavior are vital social skills in various subsets of society, however engineers are usually dsigusted with those things, and have no chance to meet expectation of a manager that demands them. Unfortunately there is no natural barrier that prevents uncivilized people from getting into middle management.