Microsoft Invests in the University of Waterloo

saforrest writes "Say goodbye to independent academia. In a presentation by Microsoft on Wednesday at the University of Waterloo, a new joint initiative was announced which involves the addition of a mandatory course on C# for all electrical and computer engineers. 'Completion of this course will be mandatory for students entering the E&CE program.'" Microsoft's press release is available.

Comments

Nooooooo!

[__aaaaxm1522]

*sigh* I had hoped that the mathematics & Comp Sci department at U of W knew better. But who am I kidding? When I went there, we used to joke about how U of W's secondary campus was located in Redmond - given the large # of UW CompSci co-ops and graduates that worked there.

Ah well, at least my old Physics department is underfunded (wait... RIM is investing $150 million in a new Physics research institute @ the U of Waterloo? DOH!)

Waterloo always had close ties with industry. Now they appear to have an umbilical cord.

Re:Nooooooo!

[rruvin]

The Electrical and Computer Engineering program has nothing to do with the Faculty of Mathematics or the Computer Science program. It is a part of the Faculty of Engineering.

No such requirements are present in the Computer Science program.

Re:Nooooooo!

[sylvester]

I'm really surprised this isn't affecting the new Computer Science faculty that's opening at Waterloo next year. I imagine it's only a matter of time until they fall too though..

Waterloo does not have, and is not getting a Comp Sci faculty. They have a mathematics faculty, one of a few in the world. That in turn had a Computer Science department, which has now become a School of Computer Science. They are also now starting to offer a Bachelors of Computer Science, although the old Bachelors of Math with a major in Computer Science will still be available. The new B.CS will be less math intensive, and more open to specialization in various areas.

-Rob

Re:Nooooooo!

[Jason Earl]

For one thing a Java compiler and JVM exists for every platform that you can name. And you don't have to have a special development environment to hack Java. All you need is a Java compiler, a JVM and a text editor. I am not interested in paying money for Microsoft's tools, nor am I interested in booting into Windows to use them.

Re:Nooooooo!

[Jason Earl]

jearl@porter:~$ csc
bash: csc: command not found

jearl@porter:~$ apt-cache search csc
cbrowser - a C/C++ source code indexing, querying and browsing tool
cscope - Interactively examine a C program source
libcteco50000 - Orga Eco 5000 smartcard reader PCSC and CT-API driver
libgempc410 - PC/SC driver for the GemPC 410 smart card reader
libgempc430 - PC/SC driver for the GemPC 430 smart card reader
libpcsc-perl - Perl interface to the PC/SC smart card library
libpcsclite-dev - PCSC Lite client development files
libpcsclite0 - PCSC Lite client library
libslbreflex2 - Reflex 62/64 smartcard reader PCSC and CT-API driver
libstring-approx-perl - Perl extension for approximate matching (fuzzy matching)
libtowitoko2 - Towitoko smartcard reader PCSC and CT-API driver
pcsc-tools - Some tools to be used with smart cards and PC/SC
pcscd - PCSC Lite resource manager daemon
slib - Portable Scheme library.

I apparently don't have a csc compiler available. Perhaps it's in non-free?

Re:Nooooooo!

[btempleton]

You didn't to be a software developer. You could learn to be a software developer over in E.E. or at many other schools, but because you went to the C.S. department in the Math faculty, they had the idea they should teach you some math before giving you a degree that says Bachelor of Mathematics.

Now this view is obviously fading a bit with the School of Computer Science, but it was hardly a secret.

why this is a bad idea

[selectspec]

When I connected to the site:

Warning: Too many connections in /home/uws/websites/uwstudent.org/lib/dbconnect.php on line 2

Warning: MySQL Connection Failed: Too many connections in /home/uws/websites/uwstudent.org/lib/dbconnect.php on line 2

could not connect to database

Re:why this is a bad idea

[dillon_rinker]

This sort of thing won't be happening much longer; they'll soon be running SQL Server 2000 and IIS 5.0 atop Windows 2000. The load likely will never be too high, but if there is are a lot of hits, performance will degrade much more grace*** STOP: 0x0000000C (0000000A, 0xFAADFF0D, 00000008, 00000000) UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP

Re:why this is a bad idea

[paulschreiber]

there's now a static version of the page that is being updated every 10-30 minutes. i've also tweaked the mysql connection pool size.

hey, at UWS we use open source/free software. :-) it's a LAMP box.

paul
(uws sysadmin type)

Re:Where's the Problem?

[sylvester]

And what about those students that are already here? I'm not in Computer Engineering, but Computer Science at Waterloo. I find it offensive that my school would sell out its curriculum to Microsoft. Switching schools is hardly a reasonable option for someone that's already here, though I would consider it if it happened in CS and not just CompEng.

-Rob

Buying mandatory classes?

[Skyshadow]

It seems to me that the big at-fault party here is the University.

The fact that this University is willing to sacrifice any sort of appearence of propriety in order to squeeze a few bucks out of Microsoft is as pathetic and outragous as if they were to let the parents of poorly-performing students buy their way in with large cash donations.

Of course, the latter example happens all the time, but at least they don't brag about it in press releases.

Anyhow, it seems to me a horrible idea to set this sort of prescident. What's next? Coke gives a few bucks to the football team and suddenly all students have to undergo a session about the crisp, refreshing taste of Coke, Diet Coke and Sprite? The music industry buys the U a building and, next thing you know, all students are required to buy $300 of Britney and N'Sync albums for their music appreciation courses?

Universities should be about education, not indoctrination. Unless these are the best languages for teaching the foundations of computer programming (and they are not), they shouldn't be required.

Re:Buying mandatory classes?

[locust]

No the people at fault are the provincial government of Ontario, and the people of Ontario. The University of Waterloo is a government funded institution. Over the last 5 years the government has slashed education spending so that people in the suburbs (905) could get thier tax cuts, while balancing the budget. The people of ontario elected these people twice. Its gotten so bad in the school boards that auditors have recommended to the department of education that the province take over three (elected) boards (ottawa, toronto, and hamilton (? not sure about hamilton)) because the members of those boards refuse to implement any further province mandated budget cuts.

--locust

Re:Buying mandatory classes?

[Skyshadow]

Oh, so you're saying that Ontario is going to end up like Arkansas, where people are so blinded by taxes that they doom their children to shitty education and $20k/year menial jobs?

By the by, California is headed in this direction, too. Apparently people here think that quality education is free, and that it's just the greedy teachers (who can't afford to live here anyhow) who would be taking their money otherwise. Oh well, when I have kids I should be able to afford to send them to an expensive private school.

Re:Where's the Problem?

[dillon_rinker]

First they came for UW, and I didn't speak up because I didn't go there...

It's a good deal for both sides.
Deals between hospitals and insurance companies for managed health care are good for both sides. But are they good for the patient? Deals between the military and arms contractors are good for both sides. But are they good for soldiers & taxpayers? Hypothetical deals between congressmen and lobbyists ("hypothetical" because there is, of course, no quid pro quo) are good for both sides, but are they good for voters and citizens?

Is this deal good for the students of UW? THAT is the only question that matters.

Proprietary and Acadamia just don't mix

[tutal]

There is a reason why serious academic institutions do not overwhelmingly adapt Microsoft. Primarily it is the cost both in dollars and also in loss of academic freedom that comes with the restrictive licensing that comes with many proprietary applications. One of the founding tennants of higher education is that information should be freely and intensely pursued. Sure some "MIS" programs may just be an advanced MCSE/CCNA course, but most real computer science programs could not afford such a narrow scope. CS by definition is much more broad than software developement, MIS, EE, or networking; rather it is the culmination of all of the above with other studies mixed in.

Any CS program that concentrates too heavily on one thing (ie programming in C# or Java for that matter) really short changes its students and limits the potential that they can achieve. A much more broad approach, while not churning out top notch Java developers, produces excellent problem solvers who are able to quickly learn and adapt to the ever-changing technology world. Looking back on my undergrad experience I think that playing around on the HP-UX and AT&T UNIX (R) box helped me break out of the mold and learn much more effectively.

So?

[captain_craptacular]

If the CS department is worth a 1/2 a crap it doesn't really matter what language[s] they teach the classes in. The students should come away with a good solid foundation of general programming knowledge. Languages come and go, if a CS grad needs to know one they should be able to buy the reference and compare to their base of knowledge. Note: I'm not saying CS grads should be guru's in whatever language they choose after a day, but they should be able to get by.

Re:So?

[Salsaman]

Yeah but how are the students gonna learn things like memory management and hardware control if they are using a managed, abstracted language like C# ?

For the same reason, if I were to pick a single language to be taught to engineers, I wouldn't recommend teaching Java either.

You should start with something like C that teaches the fundamentals, then when you know how a computer *really* works, you can move on to a higher level language like C# or Java.

Microsoft marketing gurus

[Infonaut]

I can see them all scratching their heads.

Jane: "Darn it, Bob, I just don't understand. No matter how many times we ask people, 'Where do you want to go today?', they still seem to think of us as a big, bullying monopolist."

Bob: "Well, Jane, maybe we should just change the message. Perhaps if we say, 'Where do you really want to go today?', people will respond better!"

The guy in the corner from developer marketing meekly raises his hand. "Uh, guys, perhaps if we didn't put out press releases crowing about our ability to buy out universities, we wouldn't be perceived as bullies."

Jane: "Bob, I think your proposal is right on the money!"

Bob: "Hey, that's why they pay us the big bucks, right?"

Re:Academic Integrity

[Skyshadow]

Admissions have always been dirty, but at least in the past you didn't have classes being bought and sold.

Beyond the fact that C# isn't by any stretch the best language to teach concerning the basics of computer programming (and as such is a disservice to the students at large), this also sets a horrible prescident. Maybe Putnam can buy this U a new administrative building and get a new mandatory lit class added -- "Lit 203 -- The Works of Tom Clancy"

At least C# is (probably) useful

[Wraithlyn]

Not to take M$'s side or anything, but at least they're teaching something RELEVANT now. When I went there, they were inflicting MODULA-3 on us. (And Pascal.. but then, I like Pascal)

Re:At least C# is (probably) useful

[dillon_rinker]

Relevant to what? How much production code out there uses C#? How many people will still be programming in C# 20 years from now?

Learning languages currently being marketed by corporations is stupidly shortsighted. I'd about exepct this from a 2-year tech school, maybe, but a university?

"Hey kids! This semester, we'll learn about object oriented programming! Open your C# manual to page..."

"Hey kids! This semester, we'll learn about data structures! Open your C# manual to page..."

"Hey kids! This semester, we'll learn about algorithms! Open your C# manual to page..."

"Hey kids! This semester, we'll learn about ethics! Open your C# manual to page..."

Re:At least C# is (probably) useful

[bigjocker]

C# does have one major feature that Java does not, meta data and reflection. Now those are not features that many programmers who have not used the Lisp machine are familiar with but it is a very powerful way to program.

Please check the java.lang.reflect package in the standard J2SDK and come back to this thread. And while you are doing so check the JPDA architecture and head up to the Eclipse Project to see a ass kicking implementation of meta data and reflection.

BTW, all this was in Java a lot of time ago, if you didn't know it, that's your fault.

I would like someone to explain us what's about the getter and setter structure in C#, it's like Minority Report: Spielberg couldn't get rid of the whole AI crap completely ... and MS can't get rid of the VB crap either.

Old Hat Distribution

[Mittermeyer]

Guys, this is an ancient practice dating from when IBM and alums would give away mainframes for market share and also writeoffs, all the way through to Apples in the classrooms to hook the little monsters on GUIs. This is so old hat, it's just a knee-jerk reaction story. Move along, nothing new to see here.

The myth of Waterloo

[AdamBa]

OK, just have to weigh in with my opinion on the exalted status of Waterloo within Microsoft. What explains Microsoft's fascination with Waterloo graduates? Read on (hint: it has to do with the interaction between how Waterloo does it co-op program, and how Microsoft does its interviews).

[This is an excerpt from chapter 2 of my book.]

"Waterloo is considered the premier engineering school in Canada, and is most famous for its co-op program, in which students alternate school trimesters with work trimesters for five years. By the time they graduate, students have accumulated six different four-month work assignments. Some students wind up spending three or four of these co-op terms as Microsoft interns and then hire on full-time when they graduate. "Co-op" and "intern" mean the same thing in this case--one is the Waterloo term and one is the Microsoft term--but because of how the Waterloo schedule works, Waterloo co-ops will show up for Microsoft internships not only during the summer, but also from January to April and September to December.

Waterloo students have a reputation at Microsoft for being the crème de la crème among interns. In fact, for a while Waterloo interns were given special email addresses. While interns from all other schools had email addresses that started with "t-" (to visually distinguish them from full-time employees), Waterloo interns were given the unique prefix "w-". In the world of Microsoft that was high status indeed. Having grown up in Canada and knowing many people who went to Waterloo, I will state that there is nothing particularly magical about Waterloo students. Waterloo certainly does attract some of the best engineering students from all across Canada, but the admission standards are unquestionably lower than at the Ivy League universities, MIT and other top U.S. schools. Waterloo does a fine job of educating its students, but the curriculum is the same standard engineering courses offered elsewhere.

Despite this, Microsoft will happily turn down honors graduates from top U.S. schools, while drooling over Waterloo students. Why is this? It is because of the co-op program. But what is it about the co-op program? First of all, let's separate the students who did co-op terms at Microsoft, and lump them together with students from other universities who did internships at Microsoft. Those students are treated differently from others interviewing--Microsoft does recognize previous work experience at Microsoft as a valid input to the hiring process. One of the main goals of the whole internship program is to conduct extended, real-world evaluations for future full-time employment. If you have worked as an intern at Microsoft in the past and gotten good reviews from your boss, that is considered prima facie evidence that you will do well as a full-time employee and will factor into your interview after college. In fact it may become harder and harder for others to get full-time jobs at Microsoft, because hiring former interns carries so much less uncertainty.

But what about the students who have not interned at Microsoft before? Microsoft interviewers love to hear about specific tasks that were worked on by the candidate, with clear goals and results. Waterloo co-op jobs are great for this, so they give the students much more to talk about during interviews. This gives the Waterloo students a huge advantage over those from other schools, without indicating that they are likely to do any better once they are hired. The real ability they have is the ability to interview well at Microsoft.

I once asked a former Microsoft recruiter what she thought about Waterloo. Her first instinctive reaction was "a top school for technical candidates." But after thinking about it for a bit, she commented, "Outside of Microsoft, I've never heard of Waterloo."

Microsoft used to have a very bad attitude towards universities in general, viewing them merely as (imperfect) training grounds for students. Graduate degrees, with the exception of MBAs, were viewed as a waste of time. One senior manager, discussing recruiting students who were considering graduate school instead of Microsoft, once said, "We fully know how bogus [graduate school] is." This has improved recently (Microsoft now gives grants to schools without trying to dictate exactly what the money will be used for), but the bias against theoretical work and in favor of applied work still remains. Trying to figure out the relevance of a school project during an interview is hard--it is too dissimilar from the work done at Microsoft. Much easier to discuss co-op terms with a Waterloo candidate, and much less risk to recommend "hire" on one. So the myth of Waterloo persists."

- adam

Re:The myth of Waterloo

[Succa]

Excellent. That's exactly how I've always felt about UW students. They're nothing special. In fact, I'm hard-pressed to think of a single famous UW grad. Not famous in the sense that they started a business, or that they've done well fiscally for themselves. I mean famous. A household name. A Dijkstra or a Stallman. I can't think of any, can you?

After being surrounded by innumerable UW students in the last 5 years, I'm more than thrilled to see their self-congratulatory egos shattered by the hammer of reality. There's a common fallacy among UW CS/CE/EE students that goes like this:

1. School X is good
2: I go to school X
3. Therefore, I am good.

But many of the UW grads I've worked with don't know their heads from their asses. Ask anyone who has ever TA'd CS 354 (the third-year Operating Systems class), and who has had students ask them what a heap is, for example. And yet, they'll strut around school, thinking about how companies will stumble over each other in offering them cushy jobs with huge salaries, free Odwalla, etc.

Re:The myth of Waterloo

[Stu Charlton]

(Disclaimer: I'm a former Waterloo CS student. Left for my career without graduating around the beginning the dot-com bubble, still employed, no regrets.)

I agree with your assessment that there's a mythos behind UW students that seems to be carried among other companies as well, particularily in professional service firms, whether smaller ones or larger (like Accenture). But this mythos isn't entirely without basis.

I would generalize your observation to include my own experiences interviewing and working with UW co-ops and graduates: many UW students often *do* interview better than most other graduates and/or interns. And they often do generate better-than-average results. Over the past 2 companies I've worked for on the U.S. west coast and the east coast -- management fell in love with UW students.

I would attribute this to what some might find surprising: many CS and Eng students at UW have very good communication skills relative to their peers in other schools. The co-op program requires them to be good, since they have to work in between heads-down course work. Naturally every class has legendary high-mark/anti-social students, but they wind up being professors anyway *grin*.

A secondary reason for UW student's success at Microsoft and PSFs is that UW tends to hammer programming skills into CS students, even if it kills them (as anyone who's taken Operating Systems will attest to).

Being relatively professional speakers, the best UW co-ops are usually both confident & technically savvy enough to be placed on the front-lines to do real work -- whether in front of a client for a contract, or @ Microsoft with the culture of debating ideas.

Usually the UW co-ops and/or graduates I have known have been better than many full-time employees at client sites. But not perfect. I find UW grads, like all grads, have a lot of learning to do in placing systems work in business context. There's also a general lack of both high and low-level design skills, and an overemphasis on tricky algorithms and/or cleverness. The cynic in me believes this makes them fit right into Microsoft, which until .NET rarely considered elegance an important facet of keeping software costs low. The only grads that have design skills and/or good business skills usually are self-taught.

So, in summary: there is a myth around waterloo students, but not entirely unwarrented. They're more experienced programmers than most regular interns from other schools, and often they can be better communicators.

Re:The myth of Waterloo

[mikec]

Ian Goldberg. I had the entertaining job of teaching second-year programming to him. He answered questions practically before I finished asking them. I eventually had to limit him to, like, three answers per lecture.

Re:The myth of Waterloo

[btempleton]

How many people are as famous as Dijkstra or Stallman? (Not that my mother would know either of their names!)

And how many famous poeple do you know the alma mater of?

A lot of guys from my time at U of Waterloo have done stuff to get noticed. People like Mark Tilden get written about. Ever heard of RIM? Built almost entirely by UW people, and I know their names and went to school with many of 'em, so you might not.

Some for the people who founded Mortis Kern, who were also the people who wrote Coherent, pretty well known in Unix circles.

Know Tom Duff and Bill Reeves? They're pretty famous in computer graphics circles. You see their names on the credits or a lot of movies from ILM and PIXAR. Late 70s waterloo folks again.

Walter Banks, one of the founders of Byte magazine? Scott Vanstone, pioneer in eliptic curve cryptography. (he taught me crypto.) And as the article suggests, though MS doesn't make its programmers into stars, a ton of Microsoft's code is from UW grads.

And you know, I'm not as famous as Stallman but I'm not that unknown myself in the online world.

And this is just the guys from my time around 1980. Lots of other folks after us went on to great things, but I don't necessarily know what school they went to.

Of course, UW is a young school, just coming up on 45 years of age. It got famous for WATFOR when it was only 10 years old. It takes a lot of time and reputation to get to the level of those other schools.

Is it the best school in the world? Who knows, but I know when I started hiring people years later, few I found from various U.S. schools were as good as the friends I had who were the best from Waterloo.

think this is a bad idea? tell the president!

[paulschreiber]

If you think this is a bad idea, let UW President David Johnston know:

- email president@uwaterloo.ca
- phone 519-888-4567, Ext. 2202
- fax 519-888-6337

Job Interviews in 4 Years...

[unsinged int]

4 years from now a bunch of grads will be heading to interviews...

Grad: "I know C#! Hire me!"
Industry: "C#. Check. What else do you know?"
Grad: "Huh? Like what?"
Industry: "Well, what did you learn in some of your other courses?
Grad: "I know how to design a web page so that it only works under Internet Explorer."
Industry: "Hmm..okaaaay. What type of degree did you say you have again?"
Grad: "I have a copy right here..."
Industry: "That says MCSE. That's not a diploma."
Grad: "No, it is. There's some fine print at the bottom. See?"
...

The Other UW and Microsoft

[jordanda]

My alma mater, the University of Washington, probably has the tightest relationship with Microsoft than any other school yet we've maintained a strong separation.

Our new building is being funded almost exclusivly by personal donations from Paul Allen and Bill Gates. We do a large amount a research with Microsoft Research. All students get all the free Microsoft Software they want (except games). Some of our talented faculty have spent many years at Microsoft

Desite all that we still have Unix orientation for new students. All homework is required to be turned in with a Unix Makefile and compile under gcc. Java is our introductory language.

I didn't write a line of code in Windows while I was there and I'm the rule and not the exception. I suspect University of Waterloo is has a pedagogical philosophy more along the lines of a community college and scimps on theory.

At the University of Washington I felt no pressure to learn Microsoft products or proprietary languages. It was quite the opposite, in fact. I'm certain no other University has a stronger relationship with Microsoft.

Re:The Other UW and Microsoft

[Wraithlyn]

"I suspect University of Waterloo is has a pedagogical philosophy more along the lines of a community college and scimps on theory."

Not at all... Waterloo is VERY heavy on theory. It's not rated one of the top Canadian universities year after year for behaving like a community college. You learn theory in class, and you learn practical on your co-op terms... last time I heard, UW had the largest co-op program in the entire world. It's a pretty good mix, not to mention it helps you pay your own way.

Just don't venture into the psych building, or the 6th floor of the math building without a compass and a ball of string, or you'll never get out alive.

Happiness is Mandatory

[xixax]

If you had been watching Friend Computer you would realise that strategic alliances can greatly educate students so that they are aware of products that may benefit them as adults. Maybe you are upset because you thirsty? Maybe a refreshing drink will help?

Xix.

Not an "additional mandatory course"

[rruvin]

It looks the like "Microsoft is the anti-Christ" brigade is overhyping this as usual.

This is not a case of an "additional mandatory course on C#" being added to the curriculum. This is an instance where the language of instruction in one of the already mandatory courses, namely ECE 150, is being changed from C++ to C#.

This does not make the degree a "Microsoft degree," anymore than using Java in introductory courses (as UW's School of Computer Science does) makes a degree a "Sun degree."

C# is OK, the decision is not

[g4dget]

I think it's fine to teach C# in an introductory CS course. Java is required at many universities, and it is no more open than C# (in fact, C# has an open standard).

What is not acceptable, however, is for grants from a company to be tied to the use of its products in the curriculum. And, in fact, while C# is fine technically and educationally, Java would still be a more useful language for students to learn.

Decisions like this really call into question the academic integrity of a university; potential students of U. of Waterloo should take notice.

Re:Waterloo has the most recognised CS program

[Screaming Lunatic]

Whether you likeit or not, if you wanna make big bucks from sitting in front of a computer, Waterloo happens to be the best choice.

That happens to be a very Ontario-centric, Toronto is the centre of the universe opinion. (Even though Waterloo is not in Toronto) Outside of Ontario, the opinion of Waterloo is that it has a very good graduate program, but its undergrad program puts out spagetti coders.

If your looking for an undergrad, take a look into UofC, or SFU. SFU has a coop program just as good as Waterloo, if not better.

If you're looking for a graduate school, you wanna school with a prof that works with stuff you are interested in. And a bigger school, such as UBC or UofT, that throws a lot of money at research. (Which sometimes involves selling your soul to the devil)

But you state you wanna go to Waterloo so you can make big bucks. Here's a little tip. Do what you like. If you like it, you will be good at it. If you're good at it, then you'll make money.

But if you wanna just make the big bucks, go to Waterloo. You and MS will make a great couple.

Webcast (with slides) for presentation

[SmiloidalManiac]

http://wwwtor.activate.net/microsoft/Aug14-02/incl ude/forms/proceed.htm

EULA Shrinkwrap 4 University of Waterloo Degrees?

[meehawl]

I can't wait to see what sort of scary EULA madness will eventually and inevitably be shrinkwrapped over the University of Waterloo's degrees. Just imagine the happy faces at graduation as they peel back the shrinkwrap on their degrees. And when MS move to a new licensing model, will all the version 1.0 University of Waterloo degrees be de-activated unless graduates pay a re-activation fee? The mind boggles.

the other reason this is lame...

[gerardrj]

Lots of talk in here so far about this is good/bad for Education so I'd like to make another point.

I looked at the numbers in the MS press release and thought: $10 spread over 5 years and across all the universities in the country? How lame? $2.3M for this deal ($7.7M left for the remaining 4 years).

Ten million dollars is equivilant to what, perhaps 4 seconds worth of profit from Microsoft? Consider that Microsoft proper currently sits on $40 billion in cash. If they where taxes 30% on that money. $2.3 million would be due in about 2 hours. This doesn't even get in to their temendous cash flow.

Waterloo isn't just a Microsoft whore, it's a damed cheap one at that. I can understand selling out for the money, but they should have at least demanded $50M per year.

Re:Bill doesn't own C#

[JamesOfTheDesert]

yeah but everytime you say C# you tend to spread word of mouth about Microsoft. So even if there is a C# compiler for linux, Microsoft gets free advertising.

Try it this way: yeah but everytime you say Java(tm) you tend to spread word of mouth about Sun Microsystems. So even if there is a Java(tm) compiler for linux, Sun gets free advertising.

Oh, but Sun is the good megacorp, and Java(tm) is an open source and standards-based, well, OK, it isn't really, but C#, is, well, it is an ECMA standard. But Microsoft is bad, no matter what.

Re:misses the point

[btempleton]

Well, this special status is after my time, so I don't know the reasons for it, but I doubt it would simply be that the students give better interviews, as the book chapter implied. That would work at first, but surely after hiring a lot of UW grads if they didn't do a good job you would notice the steak didn't match the sizzle.

I think microsoft would notice, they put a lot of effort into their hiring.