Programming the Programmers

[CajunCenturion]

An interesting read

http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/11/26/47OPreality_1.html

Good Luck
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As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[sleipnir214]

This, of course, begs the question, "What, exactly, is the difference between marketing and propaganda?"

Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

TANSTAAFL!!

 

[bi]

None.

 

[kiddpete]

I think all the English majors went to work for Microsoft (just kidding).:>)

 

[edfair]

So, once again MS learned something from Apple.

 

[Tarwn]

I think they have to look at it this way:

If they are worried about hiring students who have only learned the MS way of doing things, pay for better talent. I saw many people go through school learning only what was absolutely necessary to pass tests and get decent grades (some of them were A students, but thats another topic altogether). I could see these students being the most affected if a program chose to teach purely Microsoft languages with a heavier emphasis on the .Net libraries than the logic of programming in general. But in my opinion there will also be students that go beyond the test material.

In my opinion, whether it's .Net or Java, I don't want anyone that only learned the languages or libraries that were being taught.I worked fulltime through college and still graduated with a working knowledge in 4 or 5 languages plus dabbling in several others and a heavy amount of theoretical. Sure it will cost me more if I only hire people that were more dedicated towards furthering their education than in getting a grade, but in the end aren't those exactly the kinds of people we want for and with us? The ones that are dedicated to keeping their skills polished and diverse?

I don't really see this as much differant than the students that graduate having only learned C++ or Java. Perhaps at some point it will become impossible to learn to far outside of any one field while getting a degree, but I don't see that happening yet. So fo r now it may be a blessing that MS is pushing this so hard because it will make the students who put more energy into getting everything out of the education shop up that much easier.

-T

_{01000111 01101111 01110100 00100000 01000011 01101111 01100110 01100110 01100101 01100101 00111111}
The never-completed website:

http://www.tiernok.com/

 

[TomKane]

I like this guy's take on the thing - it's not so much the language as the person using the language...

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000073.html

 

[jsteph]

Interesting bit about .Net on Linux...it begins to answer some questions raised in thread656-696202 (Is Desktop .Net Dead?).
My guess is that MS will definitely charge a fee--if not in dollars then in crippled performance or functionality.

...much the same as MS's insidious--and of course successful--strategy of giving developers a public set of API's for development of applications (specifically those that compete with MS Office) while MS used the non-crippled Private API's. I see no reason why they wouldn't continue with this strategy.
--jsteph

 

[MakeItSo]

To me, it all comes down to one thing:
[blue]"...because college kids are smart enough to understand what’s going on and independent enough to keep their options open[/blue]
Right: there will always be the few good ones, the "Smart and gets things done" as described in the article TomKane posted the link to.
But: Aren't those millions "average or less - talented and -motivated" the ones that make MS' power, influence & revenue rise beyond imagination? Plus the even more millions of absolutely-not-talented users?
So it might in fact be, that "In academia, [influence by corporations] doesn’t reach a critically alarming peak".
But in everyday computer use it already has!
So the question is: can we tolerate this?
To make it short: to a large degree I can.
Of course I think MS should be forced to behave more openly towards the market and thus to allow greater interoperability with e.g. Linux. (Although this already has improved a lot).

What do you guys think?
MakeItSo

 

[jrbarnett]

MakeItSo,

I think there is an easy way of doing that: Remove the "OEM" type operating systems from sale, and give the purchaser the option of say, Windows XP or Linux with an appropriate software bundle, and a price difference that reflects the costs to the manufacturer in support and actual purchase costs.

In the UK earlier this year, a well known computer maker tried this, offering Linux PC's with OpenOffice, but it fell down after a few months because:
1) the Linux machines weren't able to use all the features within the PC (eg the USB only ran at 1.1 rather than 2, PCI software modem didn't work and the graphics card didn't run at top resolution/refresh rate for the supplied monitor).
A little work on their part could fix this, with appropriate drivers and configuration.

2) Their technical support staff, which already didn't have a particularly good reputation amongst the UK computer population, could write what they knew about Linux on the back of a stamp, and were ill prepared for the associated support calls.

They stopped doing them after about 3 months.

John

 

[MakeItSo]

Interesting!
If I were big Bill G., I'd even pay people like this manufacturer for performing so strikingly stupid and unprofessional.
Such actions could have a better marketing effect for Redmond products than anything else!
("See: we're not just the biggest but also the best!&quot

Concerning speed, reliability and mulit-media nothing has ever been able to top an apple if I'm not very mistaken - and that includes the price. But Big Bill was an absolute genius when contracting with IBM in the early stages. This has given him the big spread. Apple has grown a bit in importance since the I-Mac but still can't reach MS.
And now - MS can only stop itself from winning. Who else could? It's close to a monopolist. And as such, marketing strategies like the one that caused this thread will cause a frown but that's it. Ask anyone about it in 1 year...

But hey: I'm an MS-cripple myself! I earn my money with MS products - if they were all too good (and less wide-spread) I'd have to look for something else to make my living. ;-)

 

[jrbarnett]

What is even worse is that I recall they advertised that "Not all functionality will work on Linux systems"
-so they knew about it.

John

 

[MakeItSo]

Hhhm - are you sure he wasn't paid by Bill?

 

[dilettante]

I wonder if Sun's JDS will begin to make a difference here. Looks like they are trying to produce a basic "anybody can use it" system:

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1399984,00.asp

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1402438,00.asp

The 1st link is to an article about the platform, the 2nd is more development related.

I'm not so sure this "annual subscription" licensing model will be popular though.

 

[CajunCenturion]

I find it interesting that no one grabbed on to the following:
"Randy Potter, who is on the MIS advisory board at Texas Tech University as well as being the chief Microsoft architect at Cap Gemini,"
and sees a conflict of interest here.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[dilettante]

Here's a "Sun's take on Longhorn" article, same site:

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1388597,00.asp

I hope I'm not drifting too far off-topic.

 

[lionelhill]

(1) Isn't it better that people learn something useful? I mean, don't you get depressed by the student-homework questions in the assembly forum: "my teacher, who hasn't progressed at all in 10 years, would like me to program something utterly pointless and relevant only to 16-bit dos, but unfortunatly no one has explained what the ax register is so I can't do it. Please could you help?"

(2) A good programmer is a good programmer. Someone who understands how to translate human problems into computer-solvable ones has a useful talent. It doesn't make any difference what syntax they learn. That's just book-work.

(3) What's wrong with advertising your language? Sigmaplot run a competition for best graphic produced using their software. Manufacturers in every field know how valuable a competition is to advertise things.

 

[jsteph]

Cajun,
I'm not sure there's a conflict. He's with a consulting firm, doing Microsoft stuff, and also an an advisory board at a College. It might be different if he actually was a MS employee, but even still, I assume thare are Board Members at Texas Tech who work with Sun products in some capacity. And they may have had their input too as to which direction in which to push the curriculum--Java or C#.

But the article didn't clearly state that Texas Tech was pushing students away from java and towards c#--just that MS was doing that with cash prizes for students and grants to schools. I think the problem would be if a Dean actively steered a java student (or had a pattern of steering many students) away from that and into a c# class.
--jsteph