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What Makes an OSS Class Work?

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the knowing-is-half-the-battle dept.

AnimalCoward writes "I teach a Continuing Education courses in OO programming at our local state university. An email was just sent out from the program director asking if any instructors were interested in developing, and teaching, a course in OSS. My question to the slashdot crowd is: What would you want to see in an OSS class? What should be included? Should I bring up all the discussions about liability and multiple OSS licenses? The request didn't state it, but from experience I believe the students would have a programming background ranging from only mainframes to C++ to those with some Java experience."

7 of 246 comments (clear)

  1. Definitely need. by mctk · · Score: 2, Funny
    Free A's!

    Now is that freedom or beer?

    --
    Paul Grosfield - the quicker picker upper.
  2. Ernest T Bass Quote by pin_gween · · Score: 5, Funny

    What would you want to see in an OSS class?

    Girls

    --
    Ignorance is not a crime; neither should it be a way of life

    Congress control $ = inmates run the asylum
  3. Lesson One. by GeneralEmergency · · Score: 5, Funny



    Lecture:
    Microsoft is Evil(TM).

    Review:
    Microsoft is Evil(TM).

    Test:
    Microsoft is ______________.

    A) Evil(TM)
    B) Mostly Evil with nice pockets here and there.
    C) Not very Evil.
    D) All of the above.

    --
    "A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
    GeneralEmergency
  4. Some OSS class ideas by caffiend666 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Trolls 1401: How to avoid nonsensical debates, unless you don't want to.
    MS Math 1402: Adding up total cost of ownership.
    Zoo-ology 1301: Using O'Reilly manuals.
    Photography 1501: Online Porn.
    Rhetoric 1502: Comments as code.
    Law 1502: Understanding Software Licenses.
    Anatomy 1101: Using man pages.
    Geology 1502: Unix scripting in Perl and Ruby

    --
    Here's to losing my Karma Bonus again....
  5. Re:Teach them to be good programmers by grazzy · · Score: 3, Funny

    create another Slashdot.

    God help us.

  6. Re:Fundamentals by Pig+Hogger · · Score: 3, Funny
    I've tried this on occastion, typically with managers. But I've found it impossible to explain to them why I need this mysterious, incomprehensible stuff called "source code". Why can't I just examine the program itself?
    Simple. Write the prototypical "Hellow, orld" program in any compiled language, and print out the source code and a hex dump (sans ASCII) of the executable.

    Show both to boss.

    (YMMV according to the boss's hair pointyness...)

  7. Re:Fundementals by eh2o · · Score: 3, Funny

    Lecture 1a: History of OSS ...
    Lecture 3b: Why SCO sucks.
    Lecture 3c: Implications of forking. ...
    Lecture 9a; How to use IRC ...

    Could be interesting for people who don't already know these things.