Post #43,186
6/22/02 1:40:37 AM
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I try to tell people but they don't listen
My co-workers think I'm crazy when I point out items like this.
If you're running a computer science program at your college or university and you're ignoring Linux, you're headed for irrelevance. At the very least, Linux offers a robust, license-friendly platform for classroom and campus infrastructure.
Of course, I should talk...I'm scheduled to teach MS Visual C++/MFC and MS Access next term...yeesh. (This is not by choice, you understand.)
Tom Sinclair
"Subverting Young Minds Since 03/13/2000"
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Post #43,189
6/22/02 10:12:55 AM
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They have "stick with what ya know" syndrome.
And I've had the same difficulties as you trying to convince people that Linux/Open Source is the wave of the future. People just have a hard time understanding public goods in cyberspace. Until the internet came along, public goods by private individuals was something only the likes of Howard Hughes could provide. My how times have changed seemingly overnight. It's no wonder your co-workers don't yet "get it".
[link|http://research.microsoft.com/vwg/papers/kollockeconomies.htm|
Public Goods in Cyberspace]
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Post #43,190
6/22/02 11:05:12 AM
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Good link! Thanks...
Tom Sinclair
"Subverting Young Minds Since 03/13/2000"
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Post #43,191
6/22/02 11:08:58 AM
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Please, PLEASE, PUH-LEEEEZE....
...don't teach MFuckingC! If you really want to subvert young minds, teach them the STL instead. Anything you can do with MFC you can do easier, cleaner, and with fewer memory leaks with the STL.
Tom, I know you're a clever guy...I'm sure you can fill your class full of "Well, MFC does it this way, but if you want it to work really well, try this little STL trick instead!..." kind of stuff....
jb4
"I remember Harry S. Truman's sign on his desk. 'The buck stops here.' Strange how those words, while still true, mean something completely different today." -- Brandioch
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Post #43,199
6/22/02 2:34:49 PM
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Um....
Isn't MFC a mostly a GUI framework, of which container classes are a small part?
--
Chris Altmann
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Post #43,204
6/22/02 3:38:11 PM
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That would be correct...
Doesn't mean that he can't push the portable elements of STL though. Learning *ONLY* the Frustration class containers is detrimental to one's learning...
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Post #43,314
6/24/02 12:22:13 PM
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Well...
...it's actually a thin, thin, 16mm shell around the Windoze API, with some container things (I wouldn't dignify them by calling them "objects") thrown in for good (?) measure. All neatly packaged up and called an "obejct framework" by marketing droids who (along with their engineering counterparts) wouldn't know an object if it came up and (rightly) kicked any of them squarely in the ass.
Yes it does, of course, wrap the GUI aspects of Windoze. It claims to do so much more, however, and while there isn't a dime's worth of difference between using the MFC or the raw API counterparts (except the API doesn leak resources nearly as much) for graphics, there is a real need for containers in Windowz, so teaching the STL can generate a real transfer of knowledge.
jb4
"I remember Harry S. Truman's sign on his desk. 'The buck stops here.' Strange how those words, while still true, mean something completely different today." -- Brandioch
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Post #43,214
6/22/02 7:15:15 PM
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Understood
However, they get STL in Intermediate Programming (which I'm teaching this term using Linux and Kdevelop). The "Advanced Programming" will be mainly GUI stuff as they'll have had two terms of an ANSI C++ foundation. I push back pretty hard on teaching industry standards rather than vendors and my boss agrees with me so I (usually) get to do things my way.
(Besides, she loves the fact I saved her $70K on her network infrastructure budget by using existing hardware, Solaris and Linux instead of the Win2K boxes that all the other campuses are setting up. She loves VNC, too...)
Tom Sinclair
"Subverting Young Minds Since 03/13/2000"
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Post #43,206
6/22/02 4:40:03 PM
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Ummm.. that sounds a Lot like
Teaching a class of wannabe perpetual med students, there.. to Help People and stuff:
The entire repertoire of the recently-released KGB Cookbook for extracting Voluntary Confessions.
I surely hope that you can find *some* way of simply Telling these poor inmates The Truth about what sort of idiot crap - they are going to embed into their nascent neurons - and especially: What It's Like..." to be a cubicle-serf, a lo-bid, temp commodity IT worker in a US Corporation 2002 and Next.
Isn't that Your Real Job, sir?
(I know your words would have to be Much subtler than these, but - where above have I exaggerated the damage you know Will follow? as inexorably as, "it will be fixed in the Next Release\ufffd")
Gawd what a moral dilemma to teech in Murica 2002, where *Universities* are mere hiring-fodder-farms for Billy Ratt & Co and course outlines are created by unprincipled cretins.
I'll add 'teaching' to my list of places to avoid, next to 'bizness'.. :(
Ashton
I shudder to think - don't want to Know! yet... - if Cal Tech today: offers such Crap as you are describing.. along with all the JCs across the country. Because if it DOES: we are well and truly Fucked, and 'University' now truly means only, pre-Biz-training camp for droids.
{sheesh!!} Is Everything.. sucking faster now? Are we AT the event horizon of that Black Hole >| where all thought is erased before it can begin?
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