Will CS Students Switch From Microsoft? 879
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.
Answer (Score:0, Insightful)
Comp Sci. Students & MSFT (Score:5, Insightful)
I know a few people have copies of MS Visual Studio at home, but why bother, when gcc + emacs is in the labs and you can get it free at home?
what they learn in school (Score:2, Insightful)
Well.. what I DO know is this.. (Score:4, Insightful)
(and lots of non-CS students) are learning Java.
MS is going to need to do some serious marketing
towards universites to get
and personally, I doubt it'll ever reach the level of adoption that Java as achived.
(Yeah, before you start flaming me, I KNOW Java and
but they ARE competing technologies in some senses.)
Not really (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not at all convinced this is true. A good counter-example is Apple, who for years owned the educational market both in high schools and universities in the US. It didn't lead (as Apple had hoped it would) to widespread use of Macs in the commercial world.
A good Computer Science school teaches the principles of computing. These are abstract ideas that can be applied to any hardware or software platform. The OS you use at university should not impact the OSes you are able or interested to use later. I learnt on Unix and VMS systems, neither of which I use in my professional or hobbyist life now.
I totally agree... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
I'll pay media cost, but nothing more. Until they offer that I continue to use other tools and environments for "recreational development". I'd like to learn more about their technology, but they apparently don't want that to happen.
Re:Comp Sci. Students & MSFT (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I totally agree... (Score:2, Insightful)
You won't get visual studio there, but you can do everything you want to with what is downloadable.
This is nothing new (Score:2, Insightful)
University CompSci programs have been turning out Unix people since Unix existed.
Just like has been happening for the last 20 years, some people will 'get' Unix, and find they can't work effectively without it. Some people won't.
*yawn*.
There'll be switches, but not for businesses (Score:4, Insightful)
What ends up making the big difference will be if CS students who love their Linux (bless em) get into senior management positions in fortune 500 companies....
Oh, and this "If I made a great product, and Microsoft offered me a lot of money, I would spit in their faces," says Brett Slatkin, a student at Columbia University in New York. His colleagues roll their eyes and accuse him of being stuck at the "hippy stage."
Can anyone honestly say that if M$ offered them financial security for your work, you would really turn them down? Just think of all the good you could do with that money. That good is worth more than your silly M$ hate...
... but only the ones that care ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Whether or not they agreed with Microsoft, they at least were pretty up on the state of the industry.
The majority of students there, however, were only there because they'd heard that programming was a quick way to get a good paying job, and really were only "9 to 5" students in the field. They didn't care who or what license anything was written in, couldn't care less about what loss of rights were being discussed on Slashdot, nor even with anything other than getting drunk, and that fat paycheck they figured on when they got out.
Add to this the fact that, while expensive software on the outside world, Microsoft will give you their operating system, programming tools and office products for close to a song if you're a college student, and I'd say that the vast majority of the "average" CS student isn't any more clued in than the average home computer user.
I'd also have to disagree (Score:2, Insightful)
Where I went to college, it was primarilly taught in C++, but I went on to work with powerbuilder, and I was quite happy that what I was taught was not just one specific thing.
I think computer science students will end up using the language that is used by their employer with very few exceptions. Sure if they learn C++ or Java in college they may try for that kind of job but if the school is good then they should be able to quickly pick up any language out there.
My $.02 at least.
Re:Comp Sci. Students & MSFT: VS (Score:3, Insightful)
Get them using it now!
Don't you mean "Code Monkeys"? (Score:2, Insightful)
I think the coding platform that real CS students use is largely irrelevant to what they go on to use in their jobs. If you are actually in a university (not a community college) learning computer science, chances are that you're learning mostly about algorithms, data structures and information theory, rather than memorizing how to use a specific language or environment.
True computer scientists have no trouble learning most new languages because the underlying fundamentals are the same. An algorithm is an algorithm is an algorithm, be it in C#, VB, Java or Perl.
Re:I'm a Comp engineering student... (Score:2, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Well.. what I DO know is this.. (Score:5, Insightful)
(and lots of non-CS students) are learning Java.
Any CS diploma/degree that focuses only on a programming language and not general CS theory [e.g. language theory, algorithms and optimizations, number theory, etc...] is not worth anything.
Anyone can learn how to hack in a given language. A true CS student will understand the concepts of a language and will be able to pick up a new language in say 10 hours of practice at the most.
A true CS student will also appreciate that there is more to computers than "the hottest language".
CS is all about "how do I solve this problem with a computer" much like chemistry is about "how do I solve this problem with the basic elements"...
So really trying to focus on
Tom
Re:Well.. what I DO know is this.. (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a clear distinction though. You probably learned CS related subjects [algorithms, number theory, data structures, etc..] and did practical work in Pascal.
Whereas many current schools are making the language the sole focus of study.
Saying "I learned CS using C++" is analogous to saying "I studied math in English". The language you program with is just a means to an ends. It is not the end!
Tom
Step by Step (Score:3, Insightful)
WPA is there to make it impossible to keep using an OEM-version on a new computer and really forcing to upgrade.
And if somebody sais: "Yes, but the switching costs!" I reply: "... are the best reason to switch now, not later when switching costs are even higher"
Re:Don't you mean "Code Monkeys"? (Score:1, Insightful)
Like, say, incrementing a value by using variable++; instead of variable += 1;.
Community college?
We learn theory. Damned may syntax be, we learn theory. How to make code work. How to make it work well. I can increment my darned variables any way that I want to, and I don't hear about it
I do agree that languages and platforms aren't the concern. This is something that many community colleges, and yes, many high-end 'top notch' universities don't seem to grasp - syntax is worthless. Teaching syntax is a waste of time, as it changes with each language, and a programmer restricted to one language is fast out of a job. No, what needs to be taught is theory.
Re:I totally agree... (Score:3, Insightful)
I think they understand it very well.
Accepting Noncomplaince: This involves realizing that some people will never become paying customers in their present status
But they do this (and slashdotters bitch about it). Piracy suits them under some circumstances, and in such cases, they turn a blind eye to it. Their enforcement is fairly selective, and they tend to only go after parties who can cough up a reasonable amount of money (eg businesses) or major infringers (warez sites, shops distributing illegal copies)
Promote Compliance by lowering barriers: Borland's done a great job with this by creating single-user versions of their products to allow people to get their feet wet. Free home use, free college student use, etc.
Microsofts curve is different to Borlands. IOW, that Borland are cheaper is a reflection of the fact that they are struggling. MS do have student pricing. I purchased VC++ with a bundled NT for $100-, and I was able to pick up VS pro for $100- at the campus store. (I think the boneheads at the shop didn't realise it was a very different product to VB, VC++, etc) On top of that, MS also have bundleware deals with OEMs like Dell.
Re:My 2 Cents (Score:3, Insightful)
The people here who genuinely are interested in Computer Science don't care about who made what they're using. I'm one of them. I use what I find most useful and enjoyable. I leave any political reservations about software at the door.
On the other hand, the people who don't really get CS (and there are a few of them, they tend to be pretty annoyed when they're told to learn languages themselves rather than expect classes on each one) will whine and bitch about Microsoft. These people often go and become network admins or monkey coders (but not all net admins are these kind of people, so don't get upset
Henry
Re:Not really, No really not really (Score:5, Insightful)
I was starting college in 1985 and these hot new Macintoshs had just hit the computer lab. They were a dream compared to hacking away on the mainframe with it's handout's of push the PF75 key, blah blah blah. So as a budding young programmer I thought the Mac was the future. I wanted to learn to program it. They had an interpreted C on them that I used, but you really couldn't do much fancy with it. I wanted to go deeper. Turned out you had to buy about $1500 bucks worth of books, compilers and official Mac developer license to really get into the nuts and bolts.
I found a PC in the EE lab. It was wide open. Didn't really have windows, but a C compiler was cheap and the specifications for it were lying around all over the place. I could easily solder something together and have it communicate on the main bus. It didn't have all the expense and proprietary restrictions of the Mac. Had a built in assembly level debugger even. It was a hackers dream-- wide open and pokeable. It was not a great box, but it was cheap and available and easy to get internal information about.
Guess what I learned and pursued on into my career. Guess what type of hardware I'm typing from now. An Intel box that gained popularity along with Microsoft.
The tighter Bill squeezes his claws the more systems that will slip through his fingers. (to paraphrase the wisdom of Star Wars). He will fall the way of Apple.
You're right about a good CS department. A really good one doesn't even teach languages, it should stick to concepts. Languages are just a means to an end.
Shawn
P.S. I quickly got sick of MS boxes and went to work in UNIX. At least UNIX/Linux doesn't crash all the time.
But what about the MIS students (Score:2, Insightful)
Depends on faculty too...plays BIG part..... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wanna bet? (Score:1, Insightful)
Like all the UNIX clones?
and is now returning to a glass house model of central computing with terminals (dot net, anyone?).
you obviously don't understand
Re:What I've seen (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, lets not forget that MS often employs the "If you can't beat 'em, make them a part of us". Ex.- SSP Solutions is coming out with the EDGE security suite, which has strong potential in the future, and MS is now working with them. With major technology advancements, you can expect MS to become a part of it, if not at least propeciate it. It even propeciates Linux by having a POS OS, but I guess thats unintentional.
CS Students don't decide IT purchases/policies. (Score:2, Insightful)
Last time i checked all the MBA's and "execs" running the show are in lub with microsoft or sun.
Heck, linux doesn't offer free coffee cups, shirts or calling cards, so bosses don't want to bother.
Always that darn "Partner" thing.. Maybe if RedHat's bottom line grows a bit people want to say "In partnership with RedHat we have implemented Redhat linux 7.2 on two zillion pc's across the world".
It will take more then 2-3 companies to do this as well, but hopefully stuff like that will happen.
Maybe Suse and AMD's Hammer processor will do what "wintel" did 10 years ago.. that would be shweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet
Re:Well.. what I DO know is this.. (Score:3, Insightful)
This equated to a *HUGE* Pascal market out in the real world...
oh wait, that never materialized.
Well we also learned Smalltalk!
Oh wait, we don't use that either...
Oh, and Scheme. Must not forget that my generation learned how to program LISP, and that equated...
oh wait... never mind.
Just because I learned Pascal in CS, didn't mean I wasn't able to pick up C, or VB, or Java, or whatever else is in actual use.
MSNBC not subservient to MS? (Score:2, Insightful)
Kudos.
(*) Yes, I realize that this article is from Newsweek, but MSNBC could have chosen not to reprint it.
MS-bashing sells, so that's what they produce... (Score:3, Insightful)
A good analogy would be musicians and bands who have made careers out of being anti-corporate and anti-industry, while being backed by that same industry. Whatever sells...
Re:Java is dead and gone.. (Score:2, Insightful)
- Portable bytecode
- A clean, pure OOP model (no hybrids)
- Formal standards down to data types
- Dynamic binding and static typing
- Standardized libraries
- Syntax-level multithreading
- Syntax-level exception handling
- Automatic doc generation
- Open source distribution
As An esteemed language professor once put it, "Java is the first mainstream language that language researchers aren't terribly embarassed about".All this from a language that's not even ten years old yet. And you're complaining?
Re:Bullshite - Remember WORDPERFECT!??! (Score:2, Insightful)
The reason Wordperfect and Novell died was because MS had the DEVELOPERS and now the DEVELOPERS are swinging away from MS because, well, for me (being a CS student, and feeling exactly as this article states "fed up with MS"), I can't afford to pay $1000 every 2 years to have the latest IDE, so I develop for Linux.
Prognosis not really good. (Score:5, Insightful)
Switch? (Score:2, Insightful)
The article is taking about how current Computer Science students are starting to dislike Microsoft. My question is, when did they start to like/use Microsoft? How many (good) CS Schools have labs of windows workstations and teach using MS tools? Most schools take pride in their facilities that are full of Suns or SGIs.
Can't say i disagree (Score:2, Insightful)
I also remember talking to a grad student whose experience after an internship with microsoft was nothing less than "I would never work for them, and I will never again use their software" Now them's fightin' words, and the general feeling isn't quite that harsh, and windows still gets used to a large degree here, but that's mainly because there's nothing much to do at Clarkson other than play games.
So yes, the educated will turn to linux, that's really not that big a discovery. It's really always been this way. Just don't think for a second that Micro$oft will be going out of business just yet. Not until a truly idiot-user friendly Linux version comes out will a conversion of the home PC market come about. Granted, that's not a very large discovery itself, but that's the whole point. This article isn't that groundbreaking.
Re:Comp Sci. Students & MSFT (Score:1, Insightful)
Microsoft has gone out of it's way to portray its dominance of the OS marketplace as a result of "inovation". Lambasting the competition as hard to use, less functional, etc, only goes so far - how can you also argue the other front? It's in Microsoft's interest to portray Linux as a real threat to downplay the abuse of the Windows monopoly. If there is real competition, then it's quite easy to make the claim that a monopoly doesn't exist.
By the way, this is just to make a point... it has nothing to do with purported MSNBC bias.
Re:I totally agree... (Score:2, Insightful)
The point about Ballmer is, I think, correct. My reading is like this: Microsoft had years of stellar growth while Gates was at the helm. Ballmer, I think, needs to keep the growth going (otherwise he'll be considered as not as good as Bill). So he makes idiotic pushes like XP's product activation, et al.
Am I the only one who wonders what Bill thinks of XP's activation system? He's not going to bad mouth it in public, but I imagine that he's not too pleased with it.
I think that the biggest mistake that Microsoft made was making Ballmer, as opposed to an actual technical person, the CEO. I think that a tech company should have a dual-exec structure. The CEO should be a visionary, someone with a technical background. The second-in-command should be a good businessperson, someone with a sales/marketing/financial bent. This, I think, is the cause of many downfalls in the tech world.
Half of the equation (Score:3, Insightful)
No money is required to develop for the open community. Period. That difference is important.
What's saying a department has to choose? (Score:2, Insightful)
Learning is not about platforms. [Sermon alert!] (Score:3, Insightful)
In that time, I've worked on IBM 11/30, Digital PDP-8, and PDP-11, Lisp machines, Motorola 6502, 6800, 68000, Intel 8080, 8086, 286, 386, 486, and multiple flavors of Pentium. I've worked with more operating systems than that. And with nearly that many languages.
So, why am I geezing?
The only constant I've seen in all of this is change. A CS or engineering student who thinks that he is going to get a job based on the platform that he is using in school has a very short view. As a hiring manager, I have often cared about both language and OS, but I have always cared more about demonstrated intelligence, adaptability, and social skills.
Windows and Linux will both fade in importance, even during my remaining career. Twenty years is forever in this business, and the rate of change is increasing. RPG gave way -- so will .NET -- but the
ability to think, design, and plan will not.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's Be Realistic (Score:2, Insightful)
However, almost 95% of my class uses a version of an MS OS. I'd say a majority of them don't care what OS they use - it's just not important to them. They simply want an OS that looks pretty, that doesn't have a major learning curve and programs that 'everyone else' uses.
It would be nice to think that there's this massive Linux revolution going on, but I really don't think that's happening. There will always be those of us who like and prefer Linux - who like to play with the guts of the operating system - but the majority simply wants whatever's the standard.
You know what I think will be the big driver for people to switch OS'S - an extremely rigorous form of copy protection by MS. People don't care that Win 98/2K etc etc. cost a lot because they pirate it anyways... The moment they can't is the moment they will start to seriously consider switching.
Re:Comp Sci. Students & MSFT: VS (Score:3, Insightful)
What happened?? The kids who really knew nothing about computers, and had never programmed before, they used it. But the kids who all knew programming, etc., before joining the CS program, which was about 65% or so, they all sold their copies on Ebay. (This was before MS started shutting down ebay auctions of their software) If they needed to use the software, they would just burn a copy of the lab's install discs. I mean, it was just C++ code, you don't need Visual Studio to compile that!
So, in the end, MS's plan didn't totally work. Hell, half the kids in the CS program weren't running Windows anyway.
Clients drive consultants, not schooling... (Score:2, Insightful)
My school's CS program was comprised of various programming classes (Pascal,C++,Data Structures,Compiler Design, etc), and even though most of our classwork was done using gcc/lex/yacc/make/turbo pascal (ha!)), my career ended up focusing on what clients wanted: a rapid development base with solid data structures, written in... you guessed it: VB. MS Access was my first venture into the client world. Access is easy to develop in compared to VB, and has report creation abilities built right in. But, it isn't scalable. Enter MS SQL and VB; but NOT gcc or unix. Why? Because the clients already know windows! (After all, who CARES if it's stable, there's NO learning curve.)
Would I prefer to be developing in MySQL and PHP instead of MS SQL and ASP? Sure... Is it going to happen any time soon? Ask our clients, they dictate what technology I use, not my schooling...
Re:hell ya (Score:1, Insightful)
> things, and what good coding style looks like.
Good coding style? Have you actually read some of these applications? I am not going to point out any applications but there are a good number of them that I read through that look like a 12 year old had more time than actual programming experience. I admit, not all programs are like this, and some are an actual joy to read (most of the linux kernel). I am just saying.
Re:It's nuts what Microsoft is doing to prevent th (Score:2, Insightful)
It is just me, or does this smack of a company that really, really wants to buy its future customers?
Sure, on the surface it's a "nice thing to do", but doesn't it make you wonder where all of that money comes from? If MS wasn't interested in "world domination", how much cheaper would their software be for everyone, and not just students? It makes me a little sick to think about that.
Experimenting leads to good CS generation (Score:2, Insightful)
The UK government then decided to install Windows by default in all school PCs, totally *against* the wishes of the teachers who wanted Acorn machines to teach with. The argument made at the time was that Windows was "industry standard", and the (suppressed) counter-argument was that we wanted students that were keen to learn and IT literate, not a generation of secretaries. The LEAs imposed their will (after they got back from their paid-for exotic holidays, I'm sure) and the UK went Windows-only (give or take the odd machine lying around the lab). And now
The UK governments policy has really come back to bite them. They dream of creating a minature Silicon Valley here but it will only ever be a dream.
Is Linux a good alternative? It's more complex than the Acorn was but young minds are supple. I remember logging into the University mainframe on my first day. Wandering around the filesystem and seeing how things worked was like playing one of the old text adventure games where you type commands such as "Go north". After reading BOFH [ntk.net] and being treated like a peon by Sys Admins, I was in awe when I found I could install a whole Unix operating system on my own PC. I would even have root account! So I installed NetBSD. It was great for compiling and running C programs but by Acorn walked all over it from a desktop point of view. I feel Linux now offers the best of both worlds. It's a competant desktop but is still great for the inquisitive and for exploring.
There are few obstacles. Educational titles are very simple affairs and should all run under WINE. If schools decided to standardise on Linux then a native version of Mathematica would come out pretty sharpish. It will never happen over here, as Tony Blair has been bought by Bill Gates, but if some enterprising governments want to put Linux boxes in schools (younger the better, I'd published 3 software titles by the age of 15) then I'm sure they will reap the benefits in the years to come. Nothing like a nice big pool of local talent to bring in big business.
Phillip.
Re:What I've seen (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't know what rock you've been under, but Java does deliver - on the server. It's not a great idea for client apps, but it's really easy to write Java apps and shove them on a server. With cheap Linux boxes running the Jvms and a fast box running the database, it's a clear winner.
Re:Looking for an alternative (Score:4, Insightful)
I called up Microsoft, was incredibly rude to the person on the phone.
Congratulations, you pissed on some guy in a call center who's making $8-10/hr. Not only that, but you have had zero effect on the actual problem.
Re:Microsoft does exactly that (Score:5, Insightful)
I have an autopc.. I wanted to learn a bit about it...
buy VC++ 6.0 Professional $1300.00
buy the Windows CE dev kit $600.00
download the "free" autopc dev kit.
and everyone stands around wondering why the autopc specification that microsoft touted as world changing died a horrible miserable death. because the large bulk of developers out there cant afford $1900.00 to mess with it.
Microsoft tempts you with freebies, that require expensive add-on's or require the "professional" version of the dev studio and will not work with the regular or educational versions intentionally (it's programmed in! it doesn't need professional for the dev kit but the buttwipe programmers locked it to check every time.)
Sorry, if MS wants people to embrace their ideas.. make it FREE or cheap for me to get into it.
My falling out with MS (Score:3, Insightful)
I started programming at an extremely young age. I was around 7 when I first started with LOGO and was programming for long periods of time in BASICA when I was around 12.
As I got older (and learned more math) I started getting very interested in more complex languages (namely C). This was before C++ was really out there. I was very lucky because I had a computer that ran Windows but Basic wouldn't let me take that next step to do real Windows programming.
I wasn't able to write C in Windows because at the time, the only option would have been to buy the MS compiler for like $500 ($200 for students though). Now, I had a hard enough time explaining to my parents why I was spending so much time on a computer without trying to explain why I needed $200 dollars for a 'compiler'.
So I started using Linux, and today, I have a deep hatred towards Microsoft. There is no reason why they have to charge $200 for a compiler for students. Had they been more open or offered reasonably priced products, I would be a Windows programmer today.
It's funny that Balmer screams 'Developers, Developers' because what he should be saying is 'Corporate developers, Corporate developers'. I truly believe MS has lost the CS youth with their expensive products and their predatory practices. That is why I believe in 10 years, MS will not hold the position they hold today.
I know I'm not about to forget why I left Windows and I'm sure most other folks out there aren't either.
Re:It's nuts what Microsoft is doing to prevent th (Score:3, Insightful)
Is it just me, or hasen't anybody else started thinking about how Microsoft's customer's money is wasted on marketing and promotion that don't make the product any better?
Maybe, just maybe there is a much more efficient way to develop software.
Re:Comp Sci. Students & MSFT (Score:5, Insightful)
"Trade Journals" are largely crap, and using the term "trade journal" to describe them assigns to them undeserved respectability. If their publications had any true merit they wouldn't have to give them away -- almost force them onto -- I.T. Managers and other techie-managers.
The Wall Street Journal, on the other hand, is a good bit more interested in the truth, with a bottom-line focus. They have no natural allegiance with, say, Microsoft, Sun, IBM, etc. They don't give away their publication to their readers, and don't take essentially unmodified P.R. and print it as "news."
I woudn't say that the WSJ "understand[s] the technical world moreso than Infoworld," so much as the WSJ isn't a suck-up, but InfoWorld is.
How often does slashdot get trolled by hacks writing for InfoWorld, EWeek, ZD-Anything, etc.? All the time. Why? Sell ads.
Yes. Just because you're not interested... (Score:4, Insightful)
Regarding topics addressed in the parent post:
1. Yes, Microsoft products are made such that easy tasks are simple, yet complicated setups are still complicated. They put a lot of money into making things generally easy for most people, and although I don't always agree with their choices, I find myself "up and running" quickly with any Windows OS. Mac systems I find to be similarly easy, but more restrictive at times. Unix-based systems... well, it takes a while longer and a lot more effort to get baseline functionality in place. And if you don't know what you're doing, the learning curve is huge and you go through a lot of frustration. Anything requiring reading more than two paragraphs of documentation to get working is harder than what I'm typically used to.
That said, when you're trying to set up complex networks and complicated hardware setups, Windows can be as painful as Unix. But I don't blame them for making a "network wizard" - the target audience is too small, too smart, and needs too much flexibility for MS to really attack those kind of things like they did with simple dial-up networking or playing music files on a typical sound setup. Also, because they left most of the flexibility there, I have as many options as I can afford or comprehend. It's up to 3rd party vendors (software and hardware) to make their own products easy to use, flexible, powerful, cheap, etc. (Whatever market they're targeting)
2. Back to the main topic of CS and MSFT - I agree with the concept of "it's present, real, and you will run into it in the field".
I find it to be irritating when CS departments want to stick to Unix-only programming, just because there's a wide variety of systems out there that students may run into. I went through 4 years of college and, because I never got involved in any non-school projects (I had many problems with staying in-focus with school assignments and had to put extra time into that), I NEVER did a single CS assignment on anything but Solaris. This is just as bad as doing everything in Visual Studio... it's one company's product with one company's vision of how things should be. I may have learned many general concepts, but I won't know for a while just how much of what I learned was tied down to that particular OS or the specific products we used on our systems.
Furthermore, a lot can be said of practical programming experience... and I believe that flexibilty and adaptability among computer systems is as desirable a concept to learn in CS as are program organization and programming paradigms. Yes, we don't want to teach a generation how just to use MS products because they're 90% of the market... but we don't want them to learn only Java, only Scheme, etc...
As it turns out, there are universities out there that don't stick to only MS products for teaching, and that's good. However, many of these same universities are sticking only to teaching on one of the other systems available, and that's a very bad thing. You could say at least one thing about sticking to MS products: it may not be a good teaching philosophy in general, but if you're going to be stubborn and political, sticking with 80-90% of what's used out there is better than sticking with something that's only 5%.
Re:maybe on your planet... (Score:3, Insightful)
Okay, that was sarcastic, but anyways, my point is, Microsoft has enough cash to send peo0ple to campuses and throw party style presentations, and whoo all the money seeking college students. They do it here at BGSU as well. All my friends want to work for Microsoft, and why not? They pay good, they give out free stuff at every ACM meeting here, and they potray themselves as being as close to a party in the workplace as a company can get........ they even call their HQ a "campus." Makes me think of beer and horny girls..... well, maybe not you, all my friends at CWRU complain about the lack of women, heh.
Red Hat, does not havethat kind of cash. They have more important things to worry about..... like posting a profit
Then, there is me, who doesn't like working with MS software so much that I politely declined an interview offer from Microsoft a few months ago, and started my own company that uses no MS software at all..... Just to minimize my exposure to it in the workplace.
Every man may have his price, and mine is, I gotta be happy in my job. I cannot be happy using VC++ and Windows 2000.
Okay, mod this down.... but it was one college students take on MS. Bussiness practices.... they do bother me..... the fact that their software is just really bad, that drives me nutty.
MS Marketing (Score:2, Insightful)
A classroom teacher's perspective (Score:3, Insightful)
1) When my students grizzle that we're teaching them C and MIPS R2000 assembler instead of Java and Pentium assembler, I point out to them that in my first year, 1986, I learned interpreted Pascal and VAX Macro. Where would I be if I'd refused to learn anything apart from what I did at Uni? Unemployable, that's where. Current vendors would like you to think that their products are the final phase of computer technology and will never be outdated. This is, of course, horseshit. If you graduate with a BCompSci and manage to make a professional programmer of yourself, you'll be retraining yourself every couple of years.
2) A related point: people who get most of their computer knowledge from the back of PC Week or similar publications will get the impression that programmers need to know some API or another, and will jump to the conclusion that universities should teach an API (such as
3) Recently, the IT Support department at my university tried to make MS Visual C++ the standard C compiler in our PC labs. The first-year lecturers overrode them: we're currently using Borland C++ for those first-years who choose not to use Linux/GCC (first-year pracs can be done under the OS of their choice, but we enforce linux for subsequent years). The key reason for Borland over Microsoft in this case is that students can fetch a compatible C compiler that they can use at home from borland.com, for free. Not cheap. Free. As in beer. Oh yeah, and when you go to tell me how cheap the academic versions of things are, please remember that the Australian dollar is worth bugger-all at the moment, so it's going to be twice as many of our dollars...
Bull (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
During my CS study, the only OS that was appropriate to talk about was Unix. Mentioning Microsoft during classes was forbidden, the only exception was when you wanted to show how great Unix was. (ok, it was back in the early '90 so MS wasn't that big then).
Nowadays I don't touch Unix at all. And probably never will again in the future if the win32/.NET platforms keep on getting better plus the tools keep on getting better.
The reason for this is not that the University was crap or anything, the point about the CS study is that you learn basic things about just that, CS. Not connected to a language, an OS, a certain editor or whatever. Students of today probably all learn Java in the 'OO programming' classes. Will they all keep on developing in Java after they're graduated? I don't think so.
If a student truely did understand what was taught and what was important, he/she will choose the right tool for the job.
Re:What is taught in school is not critical (Score:2, Insightful)
Now I suspect Universities use Java (and just maybe C++ for the sdame reason)
Re:Well.. what I DO know is this.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Give a student a language where they don't have to write a lot of their own low-level classes, a well-defined API, and a strongly-typed language with no razor-thin distinctions between pointers and references, and you allow them to focus on logic, design, and problem-solving.
Then make it platform agnostic, add garbage collection, replace cryptic segfault messages with meaningful exceptions, a powerful, free IDE (Forte), extensive online documentation (Java online documentation and tutorial trails), the ability to easily create graphical elements (AWT and Swing), and suddnely the emphasis is once again on the problem.
This is why Universities are going to Java, as opposed to gcc, g++, or Visual Studio. Even
Microsoft is dealing to the wrong crowd (Score:2, Insightful)
M$ can play this same game to increase their userbase but they are giving the candy away to the wrong crowd. CS students are the equivalent of the new "Just say no" generation of kids. They know the dangers of coding in Windows and will not subject themselves to the frequent crashes and eventual blue screens.
If M$ was smart they would move from the campus playgrounds to the hangouts of middle managers. Now here is a gullible bunch. With promises of increased productivity, outstanding support, and the salespitch of complete integration of eCommerce from online ordering to delivery status this group of backstabbing overachievers will try anything.
Of course it they will have to authorize the purchase of the new
the almighty dollar will always bring recruits (Score:2, Insightful)
Greed rules the minds of considerably more young college-grads than does Ethics/Principle...every man have his price, and Microsoft can always raise the dollar bar a bit higher.
And before you go preaching again about principles and love of CS/code/open source/etc, remember what the majority of people are like, and respect the power of the almighty dollar.
And for the record, I know _multiple_ CS grads who acknowledge that Microsoft is evil, produces inferior software, and should be done away with, and still WORK (or intern) for the company.
Magius_AR