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.

Of all the flaws...

[tomstdenis]

Of all the things I pick on my school for they do approach this debate a bit more maturely.

We start off learning Perl, C++, C, various data structures ideas, algorithms, etc..

All using MSVC. But they also dedicate portions of the course to learning Linux, QNX and how to develop applications on those platforms.

The goal is to appreciate both sides of the OS wars.

Tom

as a CpE student at a major Virginia university...

[celerity02]

I'm a freshman at a major Virginia university and have taken Computer Science I, aka the CS class for people who are computer science or computer engineers. in it, you're basically taught straight C++ programming.

anyway, the professors, on the whole, strongly dislike Microsoft Visual C++ and let that be known...it's not as standard as other compilers on basic issues that get beginning C++ students and that can cause a lot of problems/frustration. we're encouraged instead to use the cxx or g++ compliers on the school's computer system, g++ if we have Linux, or another freeware compiler for those with Windows.

among the students though, a lot of them use Visual C++...they either have it because they got it free (pirated or their work has it), cheap (student discounts) or just went out and bought it because they thought they'd need a complier, knew nothing about compilers, and recognized the name Microsoft. And a lot of them continue using it, even on projects where the professors *strongly* encourage other compilers and give instruction on how to use those compilers.

so, I don't know. at least at my college, just because the students are being taught one compiler in class, does not mean that that's what they're using outside of class, unless forced to...

Not very accurate

[GSV NegotiableEthics]

From the article:
Whereas American corporations moved from mainframes to networks of personal-computer servers back in the 1980s, Europe lagged by a decade.

Oh really? <g>

A nicely pat bit of journalistic contraction, there. It's simply untrue. Linux was after all developed by a Finn who grew bored with working on the UNIX clone written by a Dutch academic. As a European VAX/VMS developer, even I could only hold out against the tidal wave until 1994. By 1990 few IT systems in Europe were free from reliance on DOS-based lan systems and file servers.

It's not Linux it's Java that's the threat to MS

[joneshenry]

Microsoft in 5 years has been completely overrun in the CS departments not by Linux but by Java. Java has a relatively simple syntax compared to C or C++, is comprehensive in its libraries, is object-oriented, and runs on almost every operating environment a student might have. It is the perfect programming language for quite a bit of the foundational computer science courses.

Thanks to the incredible blunder of licensing the source code from Sun, Microsoft can never make a compatible version of Java 1.2 or higher. I predict that C# will never be able to overcome Java's head start as far as being the common programming language for CS. Java will dominate the CS curriculum for at least two decades--possibly forever.

It is not Linux that will contain MS's expansion to the enterprise, it is Java. Java is the language of interconnection, and it is interconnection that is the major computer project of our time. Sun's firm grip on its copyrights and trademarks for Java are a far more effective barrier against Microsoft than any antitrust judgment could have been. It is Java that has united everyone from Oracle to IBM to Sun against Microsoft. The line has been held. With everyone against them I see Microsoft making little further headway despite .Net.

Re:I totally agree...

[Chasuk]

The academic version of Visual Studio .Net Pro is $89, which is pretty bloody cheap, even for someone as skint as me.

The well-documented SDK is available as a free download.

Still, I do agree that MS should probably distribute "lite" versions of their language products, gratis, with their OS's, which would certainly increase their user base.

Duh?

[GrEp]

If you ask me GNU Applications and a few other programs are the killer apps for GNU/Linux as a CS student.

1. GCC [gnu.org], Binutils [gnu.org], Emacs [gnu.org]/Vim (General Hacking)

2. Mesa [mesa3d.org] (Graphics)

3. Bison [gnu.org]/Flex (Compilers)

4. Linux [linux.org] (Operating Systems)

5. Various Packet Analyizers (Networking/Security)

5. MySQL [mysql.com]/Postgres (Databases)

The only non opensource application I use is Mathematica, but Wolfram [wolfram.com] provides student discouts and packages such as Combinatorica [combinatorica.com] are opensource.

Visual Studio .NET rollout

[kikta]

MS is hosting an event here at Miami University (Ohio) in conjucntion with the CS department to celebrate the rollout of Visual Studio .NET tomorrow. "All attendees will receive the full version of Visual Studio .NET Academic, a full version of Windows XP Professional, and other valuable items. Join us for an overview of the .NET Framework and a live demonstration of Visual Studio .NET." That's about $1700 (retail) of software that they're giving away. My suitemate and I are both Linux junkies, but we're both going for the software and out of curiosity. They giving out free food & even have a band scheduled to play. The notice is on MS's website here [msdnaa.net]. They're also giving away an Xbox, Microsoft Press Books, $500 American Express Gift Certificates, MP3 Players, "and more!" MS is definetly pulling out all of the stops to try and hook the next generation (big surprise). I'm interested to see how it will go...

Re: Will CS Students Switch From Microsoft?

[rmohr02]

Even if CS students switch from Microsoft, they'll learn that there's more money to be made by selling stuff for Windows rather than OSX or Linux, and the majority of people without CS degrees will stick with windows.

Re:I totally agree...

[jacobito]

My univerity (University of Texas at Austin) offers Microsoft software for dirt-cheap prices [utexas.edu]. For example, Windows XP can be had for $5, and Visual Studio 6 for $15 or $20. (As an aside, the University was once one of the largest purchasers of Apple computers; now the campus is dotted with labs brimming with Dell PCs, some donated by Microsoft.)

Meanwhile, the CS department offers a "laboratory" course intended for students who want to learn by hacking the Linux kernel (sorry, but I couldn't find a link). Not bad!

Microsoft does exactly that

[Carnage4Life]

Whether you're in school or not, learning about developing in a Microsoft environment requires parting with some cash. Personally I'd love to have copies of Microsoft development tools just so I can learn about the technology, but I'm not going to spend hundreds of dollars on a product just to try it out.

Actually many Microsoft development tools are available for free download or can be shipped on CD for the little more than the price of shipping and handling. These include

• Microsoft .NET Framework SDK [microsoft.com]
  
  
• Handheld PC SDK [microsoft.com]
  
  
• Direct X 8.1 SDK [microsoft.com]
  
  
• Microsoft Passport SDK [microsoft.com]
  
  
• Microsoft Speech SDK [microsoft.com]
  
  
• Windows Media Player 7.1 SDK [microsoft.com]
  
  
• Microsoft Agent SDK [microsoft.com]

I also know that one can download the data access SDK to allow development of ODBC and ADO apps but don't have a link handy. Anyway my point is that Microsoft does allow developer's to learn about their platform without requiring them to part with some cash. However some of these SDKs do require Visual C++ which is priced academically starting at $44.95 [microsoft.com]

Disclaimer: I am a Microsoft employee but this post is not being made in any official capacity nor does it reflect the wishes, intentions, strategies or opinions of my employer.

Re:Comp Sci. Students & MSFT

[PurpleFloyd]

With a little work, the fonts in X can be just as good as those in Windows. XF86 v4 (and many other font servers) have built-in TrueType support, and you can go to the MS website and download the "web essentials" fonts -- legally -- and set them up on your *nix box. If you want more, get them off the Net - many people offer free fonts for download. Then, alias your bitmapped "Helvetica" to Arial (Monotype foundry) and "Courier" to "Courier New" (again, Monotype foundry). There are a number of tools available to help with this. End result: much better looking fonts, all at no cost to you other than a little time (took me about a half hour).

MSDNAA

[AznTiger81]

Those 6 little letters (which stands for MS Development Network Academic Alliance) have become quite popular in the Computer Science and Electrical Engineering departments at my school. They offer: - Visual Studio - .NET Enterprise Servers - All Microsoft operating systems, SDKs, DDKs - Betas, new releases, updates - Visio Professional - MSDN Library (Documentation, technical articles, code samples) etc. etc. It's a lot of software, and it's all free. This just happened maybe a month ago, and the software "library" has been close to checked out of the popular software ever since. Everyone knows it's an obvious ploy to get students dependent on MS software, but a good majority don't care - we're going to need to know it for industry, we can use Linux in our spare time. But it's expensive in the real world, we get it for free, why not? Yes, Microsoft is evil. But free. That's life, eh?

Microsoft Data Engine

[MeowMeow Jones]

MSDE is basically SQL 7.0 with a few switches thrown so that it can't have DB's bigger than 2 Gig or more than 5 Concurrent users. Even installs on 98.

It's completely free and all of the SQL Server management tools (Enterprise Manager) work with it.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/downloads/addi ns /msde/

Re:I totally agree...

[BryceH]

you can get most MS software for free if you are a comp sci student, they do give it away. its called the studentdev program (use google). i have a ton of MS cds that got thrown at me through the course of my education they are all legit and i didnt pay 1 cent.

Students *have* to use *n?x

[MoobY]

I'm currently working as a PhD student at my university. We are doing parallel computation projects inside the BioMedical Engineering faculty (involves simulations of heart, bone, molecular simulations and gene analysis). All of our students (we attract CS and BioMedical Engineering students) have to use (mostly) Linux on their projects, since, in our opinion, *n?x platforms offer the best opportunities for scientific work.

This involves experimentation (especially in our case, since we are doing parallel computations on beowulf clusters), result analysis and report/paper writing.

But the student's work is not only limited to working in a *n?x environment, we also ask them to write clean code, so we can bring their code and work back into the open source community, giving their projects an even better boost.

I couldn't imagine students working on scientific projects in our department without *n?x based platforms.

Re:Looking for an alternative

[sheldon]

I called up Microsoft, was incredibly rude to the person on the phone. Told him I upgraded my computer and it was none of his freaking business because I paid for the software.

And he gave to me a new key to enter and it worked fine.

That was at 3am in the morning. Not exactly what I call begging to have them help.

Re:Comp Sci. Students & MSFT

[kaiidth]

You are lucky.

I know at least one UK university in which they teach most of the programming component of CS courses in either Java on Windows (if you're really lucky) or Oberon - a disgustingly incomplete toy language existing only to prove that you can teach programming concepts to students without offering them any preparation for the real world whatsoever.

It's so old that the version they give you still requires 8.3 filenames (PROGRA~1 lessons, anybody?)

Whereas, by contrast, places like ESSI (France) teach as many real-world languages as their students can cope with, on just about whatever platform you want. They even have courses on Postscript...

Most ESSI graduates tend to run Linux. Most CS graduates from the UK university tend to be slightly terrified and clueless. Of course, there are exceptions to both.

My observations.

[SagSaw]

I'm not a CS major, but a EE major who has a work-study job with the computer center. Here are some of my observations:

1. Many students prefer the Sun boxes to the NT boxes, especially in the ME program. The CAD software they use is availible both on the NT machines and on the Sun machines. The main reason for the Sun preferece is that the software (and underlying OS) is much more stable. It was not uncommon in my ME-101 CAD class to lose hours of work when the software crashed and corrupted the file.

2. There are two things that keep a windows partition on my machine: Games and the ability to open word/excel/matlab documents distributed by professors and project groups. (I won't touch AIM with a 10 foot pole, but the lack of a decent AIM client has been mentioned by some other students as a reason why they keep windows around.

3. Some of the techinical staff seem to have become very frusterated with Microsoft's tatics, licensing, and upgrade cycle. When asked a while ago why we didn't have Office 2000 in the labs, one administrator clearly stated that they would not pay Microsoft repeatedly for the same product; without any new and useful features in the latest MS offerings, there is no reason to upgrade.

Re:Microsoft does exactly that

[Anonymous Coward]

(talking to microsoft in general, not employees posting to slashdot)
great great.. many sdk's...
i was going to write a vfw codec and guess what.. the old platform sdk isnt there anymore. microsoft just dropped support for a clean api (with many limitations but anyway..) in favor of one with so many classes and things i am not interested in that i was kinda forced to strip a gpl'd codec (huffyuv) to get the driver interface specs. ya.. the shiny new sdk's are great.. the support for older products isnt.
so when i download these sdk's now i have to rewrite all my code when a new one comes out and i lost the old local copy :P

(and i have a academic vc++, pops up a message box everytime some programm loads the codec, its unusable)

Re:maybe on your planet...

[Galvatron]

Unless you are actually involved in the purchasing of computer software for your computer, I'm almost certain you're wrong. We have the same "download for free from the university" system here at Brown, but the reason it's "free" is because the university paid Microsoft for a couple thousand seat site license.

It depends on the department...

[CrackerJackz]

Well, MS has a partnership at my university, we can but any product that Microsoft has (OS, Visual Studio, Office, ETC) for $10, yet almost all of my programming classes are based off HP-UX, and Solaris (building your own protocols under windows has yielded more that its fair share of headaches in windows compared to unix :) ) So it seems that there is no real correlation between tossing free software (or almost free) onto the market, and what the students are required to use...

Not sure I agree with Timothy

[Geek In Training]

Timothy said: 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.

Then why aren't 90% of tech workers aged 25-32 using Apple hardware and technology? Most folks I know used the ubiquitous Apple II and/or Mac equipment in grade schools and high schools from 1984-1992. (Myself included.)

When I left HS (1994), I was Mac only. My family all had Macs. Most of my classmates, though, had PCs at home, and using the Mac was "difficult" (read: different) for them. They went off to college with Win3.1 machines.

Nowaday, do you think they're using Macs, Win3.1, Win2k/XP, or Linux?

If you said 95% percent off them are using Win2k/XP, you're probably right. It's the path of least resistence.

It's probably MORE likely that a CS major would use Linux than an "average Joe" on campus would, but still: CS majors, take a look around. We The Geeky are the chosen few who dare mess with things like Linux and BSD (and to some degree, Macs, for the Love of Apple). The sad fact is, the majority of CS majors are of the mindset that "It's all about the benjamins, baby."

I know a jock-cum-CS grad who just graduated and got a job at my employer for $50K a year. He's a nice guy, but he does not share the passion for the technology that the typical Slashdotter would have.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

It will take a while

[KidSock]

If this is true, it will take many years for it to unfold because what CS students think doesn't matter. Sorry guys, you're opinions are moot because it's the middle managers that decide what middleware will be used to deliver product. Microsoft is not concerned too much with what the students think (although they are keen to hand out lot's of free copies of Visual Studio at CS departments once in a while to make sure you're familiar with their dev tools), they are concerned more with how the managers perceive their product. Managers are not concerned with the same things programmers are. They will pick the app that has cool buttons even if it doesn't work over the app with plain buttons that does work. If you don't believe me, then why doesn't your average departmental website use PHP? It's a perfect match if I ever saw one. If you want Linux to be the platform of choice you'll have to wait until you're a manager in 10 yrs.

Newsweek

[emmons]

Just a nitpick: the article was written by Newsweek. It gives credit at the top (just under the authors names) and has the copyright notice at the bottem.

Just my 4 pages.

Re:Looking for an alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never heard of them actually refusing a request for a new product key. The assumption is that very few of the pirates are going to try phoning up Microsoft asking for a new activation code. I get the impression from dealing with Microsoft first level techs that those guys operate on very strict scripts.

UC Davis Engineering mandates MS Office "Grammar"

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a friend attadnng UC, Davis he told me that
all student engineering papers must pass MS Office
grammar checking (i.e. no green underlined text).

The intent is to improve student writing... The result must be a lot of MS Office sales (or
"theft") to meet the requirement.

My young friend is a Mac lover and felt outraged
the University would mandate an expensive application
that woud feed the coffers of a greedy monopoly.

At this point, I don't believe the University has
altered the policy. Papers can be failed for
not passing the grammar checker. I suspect the University has a site license for the faculty
to grade the papers using MS Office.

Don't even get me started on High school campuses
with Coke or Pepsi contracts...

well it certainly worked for apple...

[yulek]

this whole get the students to use your hardware/software certainly worked for apple, right? hmmmm (checks market share)

i personally think that the whole point of this article is like saing the political energy of students doesn't change to the bitter cynical views of the middle aged.

lets face it. first off, the college/univ students are exposed to this stuff because unix was developed in academic environments and have always been embraced by such. i've never seen a csi program built on windows alone.

it has ALWAYS been this way. it's nothing new. we worked on a bunch of sperry 5000s or whatever running system V i think.

right now i am coding using VS.NET. why? because the job i'm on demands it. previous to that i was at various dotcoms where unix rules. now i'm building enterprise software. does it really matter what platform i learned to code on?

and besides. in a few years all the kids entering college would have been weened on XBOX and cheap PCs anyway.

Re:Visual Studio .NET rollout

[Hooya]

I went there; MU of OH. I'm not the least bit surprised that they buddy up with MS. A while back, the CS lab (in kreger -- where i've spent half my life ;)) was completely 'donated' by MS -- at least the software i believe. The senior year C++ class was more like 'how to become a VisualStudio monkey'. Had very little to do with C++ and/or algorithms. Unless of course you consider 'point-click-drag' an algorithm. There was only one class that had anything to do with linux/Unix -- the OS class. needless to say, that was the most fun class too. I wonder if they switched to windows for that too; you know, with the Shared-Source and all...

Thank god someone told me about linux my freshman year. Otherwise I would have learnt squat. Well, I take that back. There were some fun classes. VC++101 class is not one of them.

is 'titan' still around? or did they kill that too?

IBM supports Linux just like I support Microsoft

[enqueue]

I am a very angry techie who was told that in order to be of any real value to the tech industry (Re. IBM), I would need to put aside my Linux "hobby," and focus on the "real" operating system for every PC -- Windows. If this is the way that IBM is supporting Linux, I do not feel that they should get ANY kudos for their "efforts" (or lack thereof). I'm tired of being told that my interests and skills are useless. I don't think that any of the Unixy variants or Linux are useless. Back to school once again to become a CPA I guess. They can always find work. Maybe 10 years from now they will realize their mistakes.