Students Say MS Buys Curriculum

AC

Articule in Wired Magazine .. http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,54601,00.html AC

Nick Parker

Wired Magazine wrote: In early May the corporation sent five Visual C# team members from Redmond to the school to spend a day with the staff Eric, did you get to go?? You know, I don't think this is entirly too bad, there are a lot of corporations that work with Universities on research projects, here comes another. Nick Parker

Domenic Denicola

I think C# is a great language for students. Remember being frustrated by never getting to do Win32 programs without a billion lines of code, having to do DOS stuff while learning programming and nothing else? C# can do Windows programming easily. C#/.NET make it all easy, yet it's not a crippled "learner's language," it's really right up there at the top.

-Domenic Denicola- [CPUA 0x1337] MadHamster Creations "I was born human. But this was an accident of fate - a condition merely of time and place. I believe it's something we have the power to change..."

Tim Smith

God, kids these days are MORONS. This type of stuff have been going on for YEARS. I bet they think Sun/IBM/Oracle/LinuxFlavorOfTheDay have NEVER done this. Oh PLEASE. Tim Smith "Programmers are always surrounded by complexity; we can not avoid it... If our basic tool, the language in which we design and code our programs, is also complicated, the language itself becomes part of the problem rather that part of the solution." Hoare - 1980 ACM Turing Award Lecture

Brit

They're talking about getting Microsoft products into the general Comp Sci curriculum, NOT doing some research project off in some lab with a couple students. (Note this statement "In its news release announcing the partnership, Microsoft said C# course completion would be mandatory for new students seeking admission to the school's electrical and computer engineering programs.") Would you agree with Oil companies setting up course on global warming? (Note: they've tried this in the past, and the curriculum said things like "there's no real evidence for global warming") I'm just waiting for Coca-cola to get their ideas into schools. I can see it now: "10 health benefits from drinking cola." ------------------------------------------ When I was a kid, I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that the Lord, in his wisdom, didn't work that way. So I just stole one and asked him to forgive me. - Emo Phillips

Brit

Would you agree with Oil companies setting up course on global warming? (Note: they've tried this in the past, and the curriculum said things like "there's no real evidence for global warming") I'm just waiting for Coca-cola to get their ideas into schools. I can see it now: "10 health benefits from drinking cola." ------------------------------------------ When I was a kid, I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that the Lord, in his wisdom, didn't work that way. So I just stole one and asked him to forgive me. - Emo Phillips

Brit

I think C# is a great language for students. Remember being frustrated by never getting to do Win32 programs without a billion lines of code, having to do DOS stuff while learning programming and nothing else? C# can do Windows programming easily. Uh, were you doing Win32 programming or something? I can get a NEW MFC program up and running in about 30 seconds. ------------------------------------------ When I was a kid, I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that the Lord, in his wisdom, didn't work that way. So I just stole one and asked him to forgive me. - Emo Phillips

Russell Morris

So by this logic it is not OK that Georgia Tech's intro to programming course (mandatory) used Java as its programming language of choice? Or does it only become evil when it's MS behind it? Brit wrote: Would you agree with Oil companies setting up course on global warming? That's really stretching it. Microsoft isn't saying that programming doesn't exist. -- Russell Morris "Have you gone mad Frink? Put down that science pole!"

Ryan Johnston 0

I personally think that Java (and also C#) is a stupid language for an intro to programming course. In my oppinion the best intro language is C. Ryan Johnston

Domenic Denicola

All hello worlds are Win32, that's what I was referring to. MFC is still not easy, especially since it depends on classwizard or something like that to be easy. C# you can do in Notepad in ~10 lines, I'd say.

-Domenic Denicola- [CPUA 0x1337] MadHamster Creations "I was born human. But this was an accident of fate - a condition merely of time and place. I believe it's something we have the power to change..."

Jason McBurney

Are you trying to tech logic or syntax? I feel scheme (or Lisp) is the best (intro language), because it gets the coder to the most abstract level of thinking. Concepts of Stacks and Queues and stuff are not easiest for a programmer of a few months to implement, if they have to worry about low level stuff (memory mangement). Concepts are what should be taught. Syntax is a necessary evil side effect of programming.

Nick Parker

Brit wrote: They're talking about getting Microsoft products into the general Comp Sci curriculum, NOT doing some research project off in some lab with a couple students. I disagree - See Below Wired Magazine wrote: Besides funding the C# course, Microsoft is also giving the school money for a research team to work on developing a mathematical recognition engine for the Tablet PC. Brit wrote: Would you agree with Oil companies setting up course on global warming? I think you are taking this in the wrong token. The idea is that any company/corporation that is interested in partaking in research that is relevent to their business/field should be able to make research donations to a university. What I think you are implying/stereotyping is that they should be able to control the research to better their company to the public. There need to be rules when doing any type of research, otherwise your results are skewed and the value of it is deemed even more worthless. Brit wrote: I'm just waiting for Coca-cola to get their ideas into schools. I can see it now: "10 health benefits from drinking cola." You've seen news articles lately saying that wine and beer is good for you haven't you, all in moderation my friend. ;) Nick Parker

James T Johnson

Let's count :)

public class Form1 : System.Windows.Forms.Form {
public static void Main(string [] args) {

 System.Windows.Forms.Application.Run(new Form1());

}
public Form1() : base() {

 System.Windows.Forms.Label label = new System.Windows.Forms.Label();

 label.Dock = System.Windows.Forms.DockStyle.Fill;

 label.TextAlign = System.Drawing.ContentAlignment.MiddleCenter;

```
 label.Text = "Hello World";
```
```
Text = "Hello World Application";
```
```
Controls.Add( label );
```
}
}

Thirteen lines total; arguably it could be made a bit shorter if you ommitted certain things (the centered label or the window caption) but I believe this encapsulates everything that the typical hello world program accomplished. James "And we are all men; apart from the females." - Colin Davies

Brit

So by this logic it is not OK that Georgia Tech's intro to programming course (mandatory) used Java as its programming language of choice? Or does it only become evil when it's MS behind it? If Sun was requiring students at Georgia Tech to take Java, then yes. It only becomes evil when Big Money pushes their agendas onto the academic community, which SHOULD be objective, not beholden to "Big Money". That's really stretching it. Microsoft isn't saying that programming doesn't exist. No, that's not the analogy. The analogy is that big business uses academia as a mouthpiece to get you to believe and do what's in THEIR best interest, rather than academia acting as a more objective source of information (which is in your and everyone else's interest). ------------------------------------------ When I was a kid, I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that the Lord, in his wisdom, didn't work that way. So I just stole one and asked him to forgive me. - Emo Phillips

Brit

They're talking about getting Microsoft products into the general Comp Sci curriculum, NOT doing some research project off in some lab with a couple students. I disagree - See Below Wired Magazine wrote: Besides funding the C# course, Microsoft is also giving the school money for a research team to work on developing a mathematical recognition engine for the Tablet PC. Okay, let me word it this way "... NOT JUST doing some research project off in some ..." My point was not about the research, it was about Microsoft buying their way into college curriculum. You've seen news articles lately saying that wine and beer is good for you haven't you, all in moderation my friend. So, you think big business is as reliable of a source as independent research? Do you believe infomercials are as objective as double-blind studies? ------------------------------------------ When I was a kid, I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that the Lord, in his wisdom, didn't work that way. So I just stole one and asked him to forgive me. - Emo Phillips

Henry Jacobs

This is nothing new. Adbusters: Commercial-free Schools[^]

Domenic Denicola

Yep! And you don't need VS.NET for it either :-D.

-Domenic Denicola- [CPUA 0x1337] MadHamster Creations "I was born human. But this was an accident of fate - a condition merely of time and place. I believe it's something we have the power to change..."

Nick Parker

Brit wrote: Okay, let me word it this way "... NOT JUST doing some research project off in some ..." My point was not about the research, it was about Microsoft buying their way into college curriculum. Fine. :) Brit wrote: So, you think big business is as reliable of a source as independent research? Do you believe infomercials are as objective as double-blind studies? First- About big business and independent research: I believe that typically depends, I would have to treat it as a case by case basis. There are too many variables. Second- I typically don't believe in infomercials at all, they are typically just a marketing ploy to sell some product. Nick Parker