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Most Useful OS For High-School Science Education?
Clayperion writes "I teach at a high school program for gifted students which emphasizes math, science, and technology. Currently we have two computer labs for the students: A new programming lab (all Dell PCs running XP, MS Visual C++, Eclipse, and SolidWorks for programming and CAD) and an old general-purpose lab (all Macs running OS X 10.3, with software ranging from some legacy OS 9 science applications to MathCad). Most of our students eventually pursue graduate degrees in science and engineering, and we would like them to have experience with the tools they will find out in industry. As we look to replace the old machines, there has been a push to switch to PCs with XP so that there is only a single platform to support. There are over 5000 machines on the district's network and the IT department is very small (fewer than 10 people), so the fewer hardware and software differences between the machines, the better. Without opening a flame war as to which one is 'better,' I'd like to know what those of you in the science and engineering fields actually use more in your labs (hardware, OS, software), so that we can decide which platform to support. It will most likely have to be either XP or OS 10.6, with very restricted permissions to students and teachers, as that is the comfort level of IT and administration, but I'll push for whatever would benefit the students the most."
Let the artists use Mac in graphics class, and let the computer scientists use Linux in programming class, but everyone else should be using Windows, period. End of discussion.
[ Disclaimer: I am a software engineer. I have worked for Microsoft, but I hate them. Also, I've used Linux as my primary desktop OS for a couple years now. ]
I find it hard to believe that you're considering Microsoft Windows as a platform to teach computer programming. That is the absolute WORST decision you could make. Windows really lacks the tools you'd need to do good programming, especially for the sciences.
I work at NASA... We recently moved our 20 or so PC's over to Mac a few years ago and have been very happy. I was able to show I saved the government approximately $60K-$90K a year in gained productivity and reduced IT support, salary, etc.... So, while Windows is used mostly now by the Best Buy consumer level base, which is 80% of the "market", the professional technical use of OSX is much higher.
Wow... you work for NASA... and they use Macs? Then... why don't they show up in the official NASA videos? Do you hide them when the camera's roll and only show fake Pcs? Could it be... *gasp*... no... you wouldn't be... lying? No, of course not. /sarcasm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6aQ64Mn96Q Pc's seen though most of the video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzC9FiJh2sk&feature=channel You can see the PC's at 1:40
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K__IO9atbVI You can see the PCs in the beginning (those aren't Macs)
Man, you want to do the world a favor? Teach those brats how to use condoms. Cause if there's one thing this world has enough of, it's other people's snot nosed brats. Seriously, now I'm going to bed.
P.S. Why are there squiggly fucking lines under favor? I live in America, bitches. I'm not a fucking subject and I don't put unneccesary "u"s in words that don't need them. Good night.