Re: [SLUG] operating systems and schools

[Alexander Else <aelse@nospam.ozemail.com.au>]

>being in the education system, i agree
>we get fed so much windows bushi^H^H^H^H^Hrubbish, its not funny

you know ^W removes the whole word? :)


>why they spend $600 of my (and my parents) tax money on a license
>of vb (not counting the os, word etc) per computer i dont know!

i'm going to assume that you're attacking the choice of development
language/environment and not the whole "why should i pay for education i'm
not getting?" thing.  this is probably because VB is widely used in
industry (no beer jokes thanks) and there's a need for people able to
develop new applications with this language and maintain existing ones.

but wait, that's not right.  let's ignore the investment in expense, time
and resources used to create these applications and start from scratch on a
new platform that none of the existing users know how to use.  but that's
ok cause we can throw some money into training them and the loss of
productivity during this period isn't really that important.  i mean, the
customers won't mind if we're a bit slow off the mark.  and so what if our
IT people don't feel competant to admin production unix machines?  they can
learn like anyone else.  it's not like something bad would ever happen, right?


>its just insane, no one can tell me that a base install of your glossy
>linux distros are hard to use. Whats wrong with teaching c? or how

i'm going to separate admin vs use, and ignore the admin point.  they're
different to use from windows.  you have to train people to use a different
operating system, which entails a lot of time and expense.  it's an
investment that it is often best to avoid, especially given that your main
argument has been "why are they spending $600???".  a better question to
ask would be "why are they spending $600 on VB when
$obviously_superior_free_windows_basic_package is available?"


>spend a bit more money on a few good unix teachers, and still make a 
>saving, whilst teaching established standards

this relates to my initial argument.  good unix teachers can teach good
unix.  good windows teachers can teach good windows.  this isn't an
oxymoron, as i'm sure someone will eagerly point out if i don't say
anything now ;)  windows has its place in the world, and that place is on
the machines of users.


Alexander Else
Internet Operations Technician
OzEmail / UUNET Asia Pacific Operations

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