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Originally Posted by brecklundin
One of my pet peeves about all the -nix/-nux environments is their lack of consistent standards as a rule. Likely because of exactly what you describe in college these days. It's the "...here is an OS...we will have a test tomorrow...the final is in two months...see you in two months....good luck..." but that is the way Unix has always been.
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I do not agree that there is a lack of standard that is worse than anywhere else. There are some Unix dialects but everything works approximately the same and when you know the basic you can fast find out what you need.
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People can complain all we want about MS & Apple with their business models. But they gave us one thing...stability within their respective environments. Love or hate 'em the systems do work very well. Apple even managed to tame Unix which was only possible because of the closed hardware aspect they had...still have?? Not sure since the move to an Intel platform.
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If the environement includes communication with other computers (that might not be Windows computers) then MS has not a good track record. And from friends trying to use Vista I hear a lot of complaints...
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BTW, I still do not get it why the schools push Linux...sure it's free but, well, maybe I get it...no games for the most part...then again I imagine dorms have a high saturation level for video game players. And then again maybe even the schools are fed up with the games both MS & Apple play. But still requiring any particular OS for a coding class is just wrong. It polarizes students. Let students use whatever they already own or know how to use.
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There is very good reason. A school should make students test different thing and one thing they should have used is for exemple a Unix system. They should also have used alternatives to Word like Emacs+LaTeX and so on.
There is also a skill to be able to code in whatever OS you have. There is also practical reasons. You choose the platform that will no cost so much money in term of teacher time and license money.