[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>The students are continuously learning (just like everyone else) and there >is no concept of teaching old dog new tricks here. They are FORCED to learn >Linux and other open source alternatives - otherwise, they will not >graduate. It is a disgrace to have UPD CS graduates who were not exposed to >Linux - just like the previous two/three batches!!!! Even if students prefer >using Windows - they will not be implementing projects using Windows SDKs or >using Visual Studio. One bad thing about Visual Studio (as I'm using it to design something related to Linux filesystems) is that IT HAS A SERVICE PACK! Microsoft Service Packs is a euphimism to them saying "We have a very serious problem with our software!" I'm only starting to learn Visual Studio (previous C/C++ tools I used before were ancient Turbo C and C++; Borland C++ 5, and GCC - the best as I can use K&R and Stroustrup's books without fail here - so this is the first time I'd be using the RAD tools of M$) and yet here comes the service packs. Of course, there are more bad things in micro$oft crapware. >AS I have said, Python will be quite difficult to teach to students >primarily because of the demands of the other courses. I am not that >familiar with Python but can you use it to create a GUI application? >Tinker with hardware registers? Connect to the network and send raw packets? >Stuff >like those can be achieved using Java and C/C++. Python, btw, is being >taught in the Math department. ;-) Haven't heard or seen if Python can be used for hardware manipulation. C and C++ are natively adept for such, while Java gets away with it as it is run via a virtual machine, which provides a copy of the underlying hardware (thus shielding the programmer from worrying about the hardware they're running on). I'm not sure of the other caveats of Python, but I think it can be used to create a GUI app (I'm not into GUI so I'm not sure...) but what I know is that its' an OOPL, is an interpreted PL, produces intermediary p-code, is somehow slower than Java on standalone (because of being an interpreted PL), but fast on web pages (since it is interpreted directly). >As for Python against Java - again, there is an issue here of the language's >robustness and "commercialbility". I have not seen a single commercial site >that uses Python to generate their webpages. Please point me to one so that >I can evaluate it. Remember, it should be commercial and should be >database-driven as well. Butch Landingin would be the best person to answer this, but I'll mention Squishdot (which he originally created). there are commercial sites running Zope, but as I said, Butch is the authority here :) It's quite unfortunate that though Zope is more adept to web pages with dynamic content over Apache, it's not yet quite popular. But I think that's going to change, as PLUG would be creating an FAQ site that would be driven by Zope (Python is native in Zope). When I attended Linux10, comment was "it looks and feels like Java, but it ain't Java..." Python is really of commercial quality but there should be moves to make it popular. And Python can be interfaced to databases. >A little bad news, though. UPD CS is an MSDN Academic Alliance member - we >have licenses for all MS Operating Systems (including updates) and >development tools (SQLServer, Exchange Server, Visual Studio, .Net, etc.). >Our students are using these tools to learn the "trade" so to speak. >However, their projects are mostly in Linux anyway. hehehe And the UP System is an educational partner of Sun Microsystems! I hear that Sun's going to sue Microsoft again! :) Paolo Alexis Falcone University of the Philippines Manila __________________________________ www.edsamail.com _ Philippine Linux Users Group. Web site and archives at http://plug.linux.org.ph To leave: send "unsubscribe" in the body to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe to the Linux Newbies' List: send "subscribe" in the body to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
