MS: Use the Source, Luke!

McSpew writes: "The WSJ (via MSNBC) has an article about Microsoft's upcoming push to get universities to use .NET code in programming courses. Their code-sharing initiative is all about winning hearts-and-minds at the university level, where Linux and open-source rule the day. The article does a good job of explaining the issues and why MS may yet fail in spite of their push. I wish the article had discussed the reverse-engineering issues of needing 'virgins' who have never seen the product being reverse-engineered and how MS's newly broad distribution of its code makes finding virgins much more difficult."

Comments

Modify and suggest improvements?

[aridhol]

Microsoft hopes professors will use the code in computer-science classes, and students will modify it in the lab and even suggest improvements.

Translation: Microsoft hopes professors and students will improve their work, so it can be sold back to them at a grossly inflated price.

Differences in schools

[interstellar_donkey]

This is a bit unsettling.

A college or university is not, nor should be a place where flavor of the day propritary platform should be taught. The focus of a college should be to give the student a broad enough understanding of the basic workings of programming and computers that the graduate can have enough background to quickly adapt to any platform.

If you want to focus on something like .net (or something else popular), they have trade schools.

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Re:Differences in schools

[tshak]

A college or university is not, nor should be a place where flavor of the day propritary platform should be taught.

I fully agree. But .NET and C# are not fads. A "Web Service" is a fad. C#, however, is a full blown programming language. I can take the vast majority of what I learned about C# and apply it to Java (actually, I did the reverse). I can also apply it to most any other 4GL's. There's also a lot of CS benefits by studying the CLR (ECMA Standard). It is a perfect platform for teaching language design, abstract machine design, or OOP.

You misunderstand

[MobyDisk]

Most University's are adding Windows workstations, but not the servers. You know what students are doing on those Win2k lab PCs?
85%: Microsoft Word (Sure beats tex for the average student)
15%: Telnet to the *nix server to code.
5%: Using in VB for their IS course in GUI design.

They still keep *nix labs for the serious geeks, and they always have SGI labs for the graphics stuff. Occassionally Macs. But the Pcs are there to fill the gap of cheap, nearly disposable clients. The real R&D is still on *nix.

A Caveat.

[DohDamit]

While I posted above saying its great news that Linux made news by being Microsoft's foil on the front page of the marketing section of the WSJ, I can't help but come to the rather pessimistic conclusion that it doesn't matter one fly fuck what a single administrator says he will or won't do. Bullshit, I call. Unless you're willing to lay down your job(yeah right) you are going to do what you're told to do. If Linux is to be brought mainstream, it will NOT be done by the circle jerk of techies here on slashdot. It will be done by the future stuffed suits of the corporate world. So.....

You want to make a difference while you're in college? Convert two or three business/accounting/marketing majors to Linux. Set them up, provide free support, make them comfortable. Keep up said support. Recruit your geek friends to do the same. Do for the future stuffed shirts what Microsoft does for the present stuffed shirts. If and only if this is possible(no idea if it is) will it be possible for Linux to make REAL progress in infiltrating Microsoft's home world....the working world.

Re:Uhh... no

[THEbwana]

Some universities (under the pressure from non-cs departments) are deploying more and more win machines with the motivation "the students are going to need to know how to use windows since thats what theyll use when they leave university". This is absolute bull. I sometime receive job applications that proudly list their skills as being microsoft only. We never hire them. A person who only knows one os cant call him/herself a computer professional.
The "bad guy" in this case is usually non-cs management who think theyre doing the student a favour while actually ruining the possibility for the student to receive a solid academic education.
One thing that would be valuable to me would be a directory that lists all universities that do windows only training in their computer science classes. This would be efficient for me as I could redirect these applicants to the round filing cabinet under my desk without having to waste my time reading their cvs.
/m

So true. . .

[Bastian]

My school is in the process of moving all programming for its CS classes back to Unix. When I asked a professor why, the answer I got was, "Frankly, trying to turn Windows into a decent educational software development platform is about as fun as jumping naked into a pit of rabid wolves."

Having tried to do some homework for advanced classes on the Win2k workstations in the computer labs, I can only agree. . . with the minimal access student accounts get on the workstations, activities as simple as getting third-party libraries to work sometimes have their difficulty ratings upgraded from "routine task" to "black art."