On Mon, 2007-09-24 at 23:15 -0600, Alex Esplin wrote: > On 9/24/07, Brandon Stout <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > That's a drawback to several Universities. I'd say way too many of them > > teach their students MS products exclusively. I argue that any > > University CS department that only studies and uses MS products cannot > > be a quality CS department? I'd love to see BYU go Open Source. > > I'd say BYU is pretty Open Source from what I've seen, with a caveat. > I'm taking the OS class right now (CS 345) and I'm amazed at how many > people in the class can't compile and link in Linux. The beginning > class (142) is a use what you know class, then the next few classes > (235, 236, 240) are geared towards Linux environments. With the > exception of 240, you can use Windows if you want, but in 240 you have > to pass off on the lab Linux boxen (when I took it 2 years ago). So > now I'm in my first class (CS 312) where a Windows environment is > necessary (the language for the class is C#). So I guess what I'm > trying to say is that BYU CS is Open Source, but many students are > sneaking by with Windows, and consequently getting into trouble by not > knowing how to work in Linux.
My impression is pretty much the same. I did just about all of my work in Linux (or Solaris/HP-UX early on) using open source tools, except for a few classes which required Windows specifically. While I didn't enjoy that aspect, it would have been negligent for BYU to ignore Windows entirely just as it's irresponsible for UOP to leave out Linux. University education isn't about teaching one specific tool. That's what on-the-job training is for. A university degree implies that you understand fundamentals and a broad range of topics. The details are left as an exercise for later. Corey /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
