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Big Company on Campus
Daniel Dvorkin writes "MSNBC (oh, the irony) is running a scary article entitled Microsoft's big role on campus, detailing how Microsoft is working its way into academic computer science through a combination of bribery and propaganda. The aricle may be overstating the case, but it does make it sound as though MS products are displacing others at a disturbing rate in computer science departments. Given that academic computing has traditionally been both the source of and the stronghold for innovative software, this is a disturbing long-term trend."
It is unethical on so many levels.
The scary thing is, some kids are now being taught things like PowerPoint in middle school....
not only that, but with the current ecnonomic situation affecting higher education (especially here in the State of MN) if someone wants to give the institutions money SO BE IT.
That's less money the students have to pay, that's less they have to pay back later, and that's more excellent programs and hardware they have to work with.
It was a Washington Post article, MSNBC just published it for them.
A common practice in the journalism industry.
The unofficial
In many schools, profs are expected to get donations and research grants - I think the normal rate is 3x their salary. Oh, and they're supposed to publish frequently (publish or perish). And, I suppose if they have time after all that, they might get around to teaching.
A nice $150,000 donation pretty much takes care of a year's grant/donation hunting. I'll bet MS would even though in a new t-shirt for the ride home.
WTF. Seriously. Why the hell is it disturbing that MS products are gaining market share on campuses (or anywhere, in general)? Perhaps...just maybe...it's because they actually make some fairly decent, reasonably functional, well designed software? But wait, -GASP- they are closed source and evil, so it MUST be disturbing! They release software to the public that ISN'T PERFECTLY FLAWLESS!!! OMG!!11!
I know there are lots of people like me, who read Slashdot (and like it), use Microsoft (and like it), and just chuckle at all the self-righteous open-source trolls that refuse to consider that maybe MS isn't totally evil and maybe their products are useful. But like any joke, these trolls and their mass groupthink become old after a while.
Open source is good. Microsoft can be too. Deal.
Microsoft is well aware that controlling education (especially higher eduation) will give the a huge leg up in the future. I'm not sure that if I were in charge of a CS dept. and was offered a large grant even knowing all this I would turn it down, but there is a downside.
Home Automation & Linux -- now I know I'm a geek
Microsoft has been buying off students as well as the universities and departments for a while now. Check out the MSDNAA where Microsoft provides free development tools to certain educational institutions. At my university any student who takes at least one CS course is eligible. They may download ANY Microsoft operating system as well as any number of Microsoft development tools.
Also, within the past year Microsoft began selling their current desktop operating system and office suites to all students at significantly reduced prices - at $70 and below. Both of these methods of obtaining software will greatly increase the proliferation of Microsoft in academia.
All of this is discounting the huge amount of "pirated" software, particularly new versions of Microsoft operating systems and office suites, that are installed on students computers in college. A few students who know the tricks of the trade ("pirating") distribute copies to a huge amount of people on campus, especially since students hardly want to pay for music, let alone software.
A computer is a valuable tool, so use it and stop whining.
For instance, I never would have understood Operating Systems as well if we hadn't been using *nix systems; it made the difference between actually writing real code for class assignments and "pretending" to write code.
The next year after I finished my basic classes, the department began a transition from Linux/BSD/GCC to Windows/Java. Tutoring those kids, I noticed that they were having a hard time, and displayed a lot less interest. There's just something compelling about doing "real stuff" at a low-level, as opposed to working in a much higher-level environment.
What's the big deal. If people learn how to use Word, or Excel, or VisualBlahBlah, they've still learned how to use computer software, or they've learned how to program in at least one environment, and this learning should transfer to some other environment. At least, that's what OSS advocates are always saying when asked about students are being done a disservice by training them on, say, OpenOffice instead of Word, even when Word is dominant in the workplace. Does teaching students Word mean it would be harder for them to use an alternative later ? If so, one could well argue we should ONLY EVER teach students Word because presumably teaching them something else would make it harder for them to use the standard Word.
Taken to an extreme, one could argue about whether or not students ought to be taught on OS X, FreeBSD, Solaris, or Debian/RedHat/Mandrake - after all, they're all different to some extent. The question is, how much difference makes a material difference to the student ?
When someone makes a convincing argument that teaching kids on Windows software hurts them, that's when I'll kiss away the subsidies and grants that MS is giving away by the bushel.
Dictators do similar things to the minds of the youth.
Nope. He paid for a part of the building. The building in question is the Stata Center, named for Ray and Maria Stata. Ray Stata is an MIT alum who founded Analog Devices, and he's the one shelling out much of the dough. Gates only paid for one tower of the building (cheapskate), so that's all he gets. No one calls it the Gates building - it's called the Stata Center. Or, alternatively "that pile of iron on Vassar street", since it's designed by "renowned" "architect" Fran Gehry, which means it looks like it was a very nice building that got hit by an earthquake...
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
Flaming Microsoft: +5, Funny
Flaming Linux: 0, Flamebait
Unbiased moderation on Slashdot:
There are somethings money can't buy, and others that will simply never happen.
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
You make a good point, and there are days that I agree with you. However, I often think that perhaps the reason Linux code tends to be more reliable that Windows code is that you weed out all the coders dependent on the graphical IDE.
I've done countless things in Visual Studio where I had no idea all the compiler switches that were being used. In some cases, this created some problems.
In Linux however, I am forced to read all about the switches to get things done. When I need to do something, I read the man page to find the switch I need. I also tend to read about at least 5 other switches in the process. I know what's going on when I compile with gcc, but I'm not real sure about Visual Studio.
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
How much of that $100 million is in the form of MS software, which is free for Microsoft to give away?
Accepting a "donation" in exchange for using Windows is a conflict of interest. The job of the faculty and administration is to choose the best educational tools. You are right that good progamming principles are platform/OS independent, but that does not preclude the possibility that one platform/OS facilitates education better than others. I am not making the case that Windows is an inferior tool here, as it would likely be a long and controversial argument; however, I will say that accepting money in this way prevents the school from deciding which is the best choice.
It's nothing but crumpled porno and Ayn Rand.
Thats the classic argument, but lots of things in Computer Science are not entirely about algorithm design and analysis. I find that as Microsoft products become increasingly ubiquitous in academia, people tend to get more and more attached to them, knowingly or not. And its not all the same. I had a "Software Design" class, and it was all MFC and Visual Studio, and it drove me nuts, because most of the class really had nothing to do with anything but Windows. I guess on some level every system has its own version of "events" or "windows messages" or whatever, but when you use one system exclusively you tend to gloss through the general concepts to get to the details. Those details will allow you to do all the fun things, but they're only important if you're using Windows and MFC, and have no applicability outside. I mean, in my working with Linux, why the hell do I care whether OnPrepareDC() or OnPaint() or OnDraw() gets called first when you draw a window?
This software design class wasn't taught very well, and had little to do with design IMO, but I think its a perfect example of what happens when Microsoft gives your department unlimited free software, as it did to mine. Fortunately, it was only the one class. The rest are (for now) relatively untainted.
It's not shocking. But it's rather like the Pepsi machine in the room where they teach nutrition.
Sad.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Try to explain OS concepts with Microsoft as an example. You can sort of guess what's going on, but you could never say for sure because the code is closed. I wasn't exactly hardcore into Linux when I was in college, but any professor that wanted to explain wat an OS was doing could use Linux as an example, and you could go look at the code yourself if you wanted to see how it really worked (yeah right). Pretty much every Linux distro comes with gcc, and you can look up functions and such in man pages if you need help. I'd say that generally Linux is pretty good for beginning programmers. As for Visual C++, I've had so many problems with Visual Studio f'ing up my computer that I just avoid it like the plague.
When I went to college they taught C++, and it was pretty standard stuff so you could use whatever machine you wanted (no gui or whatnot) - which is what CS departments should be doing anyway. After that they moved to Java which I thought was a mistake for various reasons, but at least you could compile it on whatever you want. It's supposed to be about the concepts anyway, right?
The best way to combat MS' penetration of the Universities is with quality and features + appropriate publicity. On one of the issues near and dear to academics, MS may actually be ahead of the OSS tools.
.NET C++ compiler, not in GCC. Rather than complaining that MS-FUD is working, we should be making sure that things like GCC stays ahead. That's a harder task, but a more satisfying one in the long haul.
Currently, the word-among-the-gurus here where I work is that the level of compliance on Win32 to the C++ standard is in the latest
And if the local gurus are wrong about standards compliance and DevStudio 7 vs. GCC, then let me hear it -- and I'll be more than willing to trumpet it within my sphere of influence at least. I think we'd be happy to use the same compiler on all platforms: our software is on several for all of which GCC is available yet we don't use it on any. Spec compliance is only one issue, but it is an issue.
cheers...ank
Still hoping for Gentle Treatment...
Computer Science isnt "how to use your computer". The concepts and techniques you learn are beyond any operating system.
Right. So Mr. Windows-Schooled sits down at his brand new job at Unixwerks, and goes to open up Visual C++, and... err... well... opens up pico and flounders around looking for the button to press to bring up the dialog editor.
Or more likely, he'll have skipped Unixwerks in the phone book and fired his resume straight off to WindowsRUs.
Personally, I don't care. If microsoft wants to flood the already saturated job market with even more Windows-Only people, it makes it easier for me to sell my Unix programming skills, at least until the Windows-Only people are so numerous that there are no more Unix jobs, everyone's switched to windows shops to take advantage of the dime-a-dozen nature of the programmers.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
MS will get the 150K + interest back when the University has to upgrade x1000 pc and servers every 2 years.
.....
You would think University professors would think a bit more about the big picture
Never mind I take that back, having known a few, I can see how this might work......
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
Yes, it does matter. And neither C# nor Java is a good choice.
... strange.
Good choices include:
Smalltalk: Everything is an object
Eiffel: Everything at least pretends to be an object, but overloading is
Python: Everything is an object, but it might not look like it. A bit too much magic.
Ruby: I like Ruby. I can't be objective.
Ada95: You need to understand objects to do OO programming in Ada, but if you do you really can
and Lisp: Well, this is mainly here because everyone should be exposed to Lisp, but you can do OO programming in Lisp. Inheritance is quite interesting.
I don't know objective C, it might be a good choice, or maybe not. C++ has too many special cases and complex rules. (Ada is a bit that way, it's a more "advanced" language than most of the others. But at least it's well designed and not full of exceptional cases.)
Another good choice would be C. Plain old vanilla C. (Look at the Gnome project, and see how they did object oriented stuff in C. They seem to have it all.)
The point of a course in computer science is that you are supposed to come out of it understanding how things work. With the *.NET stuff everything is hidden behind various curtains. Bad idea. Perhaps good for development, though I doubt it, but definitely a bad choice for an academic CS program. And Java isn't that much better.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
You're right, that's not the case. The *point* is a homogenous environment limits the variety of systems to which students may experience. The very best developers are those which have worked on a variety of systems. This allows them to think in more abstract terms and not just in the solution space of a single system. Both adaptive-ness and creativity are enhance by knowledge of many systems and languages too. If M$aFT gets it's way we'll all be limited to C#.NET and some blue screening version of windows forever. yick. it's enough to make one want to go Amish.
Haha.. you fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders.
The most famous is: Never get involved in a land war in Asia.
Only slightly less well know is this: Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!
- Vezzini
Except that programming is also about the tools that you use to create those programs.
A kid who learned on the Visual C++ IDE and nothing else and who has been thrown into a unix environment is going to freak. Why? Because even if he was only taught how to program ANSI C++ and could pick up a new language in his sleep, he still is not prepared to use the tools required to compile those languages.
Things like makefiles, gcc, VisualAge, etc. From experience its a hell of a lot easier to go from a command line to an IDE than it is to go from an IDE to a command line.
Once you are familiar with the class of tools then you can move on just fine and be expected to pick up other tools of that nature relatively quickly (e.g., once you know how to use gcc its not hard to get used to VisualAge; if you can use ProjectBuilder you can probably pick up the differences for Metrowerks or the Visual C++ IDE relatively quickly; debuggers all do similar things; etc).
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
First Falcon-1 to orbit, then Falcon-9. Then I can die a happy man.
There's a big difference between an equipment donation, a curriculum grant, and a research grant. We're talking here about an equipment donation, which is usually made to a university or sometimes to a department, not to an individual professor. Moreover, if you're looking to get tenure -- at a research-oriented university -- you will be evaluated primarily based on your research grants. I don't know of any professors that go looking for donations from Microsoft because this will make their road to tenure easier.
What's really happening here is that Microsoft is looking to hold onto their dominating position in the marketplace, and the university is happy to take the money. With state funding of higher education at all-time lows, this is not unreasonable. I suspect the means by which the technology is going to be used has very little review, because after all everybody runs Windows, right?
(I use Linux for all my coursework, research, and personal work, but I'm in the minority.)
I'd applaud Microsoft if closed/proprietary data formats weren't their game. It just infuriates me that Microsoft is working so hard to make their products incompatible with other products. Sorry to echo what is already a chant, but they are exploiting their monopoly. If they didn't have a monopoly, they couldn't get away with this extreme incompatibility with non-MS products.
My Microsoft-loving, open source-hating co-worker loves to say that proprietary data formats are just good business---it's intellectual property, and un-American and anti-comptetetive to say otherwise. WTF! How do MS Office's cryptic file formats offer Microsoft any competetive advantage other than keeping competetors out of the market?
I'm convinced that if there were three or even two office software suits with relatively even market share, they'd all do a pretty darn good job of reading each other's formats. I'm sure they'd also be a few generations ahead of MS Office---not just "little" features, but hugely useful stuff, like voice dictation, character recognition, integrated document database management, instant Internet publication, inherent crypto, authentication, security, etc.
The fact that Microsoft tries so hard to break compatability with non-MS products is proof enough that they do not compete on innovation. If their products are really so good, why hide the APIs?
Another thing that blows my mind is that people have become brainwashed to accept this as status quo. I work for a Fortune 100 company, and our IT director has actually said, "We can't do business without Microsoft." Man, that's a sweet deal for Microsoft! How many multi-billion dollar companies are saying they need Microsoft? Congratulations, Microsoft, on creating a drug-like dependancy!
It's hilarious, really.
I seem to remember when Apple did exactly the same thing, donating hardware and software to schools. It was a 'good thing' and ever so clever marketing (Remember the Black Apple for education?) From about 1978 or so an entire generation of elementary and secondary school children were inundated with Apple this and Apple that. The educational market, at least in my state, was absolutely and completely dominated by Apple--no question. You couldn't walk into a school without encountering Apple, Viscalc, and even Zardax (Does ANYONE but me remember Zardax (Australian word processor)?
But those kids are now in their twenties and thirties and Apple now has what? 3% of the market? Somehow Apple invested in this sure thing and it didn't work out.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
Microsoft has been doing this for decades.
I am not interested in returning to University to get a degree when that degree is nothing more than an MCSE. I've seen the kind of so-called computer engineers the current courses put out, and it makes me sick. Take away MS Paint^H^H^H^H^H^HVisual Basic and these people cannot create "hello world", let alone anything worthy of engineering.
A tertiary qualification should be something that is challenging, giving a good grounding in current knowledge (with complete history) on the topic of the degree while also encouraging new thoughts, generating a person capable of tackling any task in any environment.
It should not be, as it currently is, the training of mindless zombies with whatever the latest version is of a single vendors product(s). It sickens me to think the government encourages its citizens to partake in the criminal activity of a criminal organisation, using academic institutions so they can be the scapegoat should there be any fallout later.
Matt