Mail Archives: djgpp/1999/04/15/19:30:25
On Mon, 12 Apr 1999, Adam Schrotenboer wrote:
> Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>
> (snip)
>
> > Would you please explain why do you think schools need Linux? Why
> > isn't it enough to have DJGPP on DOS or Windows? I don't think
> > schools go as far as writing GUI programs, so it shouldn't matter
> > which interface they have.
>
> I'm having a slightly different problem at my school. When I took QB first
> semester 2 years ago, and Pascal 2nd semester, we used DOS. I also took C++
> the next year 2nd semester (A really crappy course in which we hardly got
> through half the book), for which we used TC++ 3.0. I liked this
> arrangement, and now that I use DJGPP, I would prefer to stay w/ DOS
> programming.
>
> But NO, I can't do that, now all the programming classes are VB, & VC++.
[snip]
> PLEASE, give the students an alternative.
[snip]
I think the high security and moderate, not ever-increasing hardware
requirements of GNU/Linux would make it very suitable for schools.
Students, even if (as usual) they know more about computers than the
staff, might find it difficult to introduce pornographic screen savers,
spread viruses and so on. Or at least, such hacking would be confined to
their own user ID and filestore, making it much less of a problem.
The main, screaming problem, as is the main, screaming problem with all
versions of Unix, is that there is no simple way to run Microsoft Office.
There are other packages alleged to be similar, but the burden of several
staff having to learn them when they already know MS Office might be too
large. (Also, I have used what I am told is a fairly old version of Applix
for Linux, and found it much worse than MS Office.)
From schools to my own point of view. The DJGPP project is heroic, and I
have also found there are many other excellent DOS and Windows programs of
the sort usually associated with Unix, e.g., Latex, Ghostview and Gnuplot.
The most serious problem I find with Windows 98 as a programming
environment is the tragically limited "DOS box". I never thought I would
come to advocate "xterm", but it is so much better than the DOS command
box that, indeed, I do. It was not until senselessly deprived of them that
I really noticed the benefits of being able to scroll back over the last
thousand lines of text and re-size the terminal window by dragging its
edges. We have Unix at work so I can make the most of them during the day
before returning to the austere, VT100-like DOS box at home.
Daniel Barker.
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