What is the opinion of university teachers about *BSD?

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I found myself waking up early, and those are the times I post stupid rants, so I will refrain. I will say though, that yeah, MS and Adobe provide the cheap software to students, so that when they get hired, they say, Oh you should use MS/Adobe for this graphics/programming etc.

I don't even know if it's evil or just smart business.

For an UNIX programmer it is evil
For an university risen programmer it is the only truth and good.

both are right and have their own solid motivations.
 
c# makes senses in computer oriented courses due to the demand from companies.
A degree in Computer Science was never a degree in "programming" and most(?) (real) universities and colleges never taught more than one language back in the dya. I was told even that was an elective.
So it makes senses that bsd has no place or that it is even not known.
Any such professor or school is not one I would ever recommend learning from and be embarrassed to claim I went there. There are so many schools now that claim to offer degrees in CS but they are no more than trade schools.

Somewhat related: does anyone remember Control Data Institute, a school for electronics by Control Data in the 1970s and 80s? It was a trade school for cranking out electronic technicians who knew nothing of the subject and I taught there for a couple of years when I lost a job and, out of frustration, thought I would enjoy that. I found the place filled with other teachers who also knew nothing of the subject but like to pretend to. I considered myself an expert in the field and it must have shown as my class size swelled from 60 to start to 125 as students transferred to my class over time and long lines formed when I showed up for work to get their questions answered.

Why? Cause I found the tests and course books riddled with errors and I was the only one who could, and would, thoroughly explain the foundation of how and why things worked that made sense without regard to any company's product (though CDC computers were the only examples given).

But I quit after maybe two years because I was frustrated and saddened at the quality of education they were receiving. Most of these people were there only cause they were told they could make a good living as an electronic tech and not because they cared about the subject. Few of them ever messed with electronics as a hobby or knew anything about it before signing on. Out of hundreds of students, there were only three I would recommend to hire and I did get them hired on at DEC through a former co-worker.

On my last day, a student requested a special tutorial on a subject for a few classmates. I arranged a room and, at the appointed hour, it swelled with as many as it could fill and I was presented with a bottle of fine quality whiskey from the students and a speech. (I didn't mention to anyone that I don't drink.)

**sniff**

Sorry for the reminiscing, and I'm not bringing that all up to pat myself on the back, but my point is schools/colleges/universities need to be teaching the science of computing and not be a marketing arm for companies.
 
c# makes senses in computer oriented

This is actually a massive problem for us. All the students ever want to do is "fiddle about" inside a game engine called Unity with C# rather than learning about core topics in graphics programming.

The big issue is that Unity is a "prosumer" tool and as such they learn absolutely nothing useful with it. Worse still is that the company behind Unity has so much money and venture capital that they can keep pushing advertising. Especially on game development forums they are often full of bloody paid Unity Evangelists that so many potentially gifted graphics programmers are just brainwashed into becoming mediocre :(

It is also slowly weaseling its way further into "academia". We have more C# / Unity related units than C++ units now, which is absolutely hideous for a games programming degree.

The worst part is that I also notice that Unity is killing the passion of my students. They have been told repeatedly from the advertising that "Unity is the best!" and yet they don't truly enjoy using it because the whole thing deep down is so damn amateur.

Anyway, [/rant] complete. Back to the topic haha.
 
This is actually a massive problem for us. All the students ever want to do is "fiddle about" inside a game engine called Unity with C# rather than learning about core topics in graphics programming.

The big issue is that Unity is a "prosumer" tool and as such they learn absolutely nothing useful with it. Worse still is that the company behind Unity has so much money and venture capital that they can keep pushing advertising. Especially on game development forums they are often full of bloody paid Unity Evangelists that so many potentially gifted graphics programmers are just brainwashed into becoming mediocre :(

It is also slowly weaseling its way further into "academia". We have more C# / Unity related units than C++ units now, which is absolutely hideous for a games programming course.

The worst part is that I also notice that Unity is killing the passion of my students. They have been told repeatedly from the advertising that "Unity is the best!" and yet they don't truly enjoy using it because the whole thing deep down is so damn amateur.

Anyway, [/rant] complete. Back to the topic haha.

Microsoft makes sure that programmers will be using Microsoft products. Microsoft will be always strongly present in our education system.

the law of physics will explain it well.

The less energy or efforts it requires, the higher probability it will grow.
This does not imply quality.
 
My estimations knowing several universities and schools.
- Windows, Android and Mac are the most popular *they think that's the best*,
- If opensource is used, maybe 1-10% of universities or less, then it will be Linux (between 1 and 10 pct),
- *BSD* is almost not at all used for educational purposes by universities. Almost 0 percent or below 1pct. Using BSD by universities or teachers is very rare.

Education is closed source, and teachers and universities teach student how to not to use free Operating Systems, but rather how to use Microsoft Windows. Which is actually good, it is good to use Windows, because everyone does so. (man, what a modern believe ;) )
Linux is often used in college for Unix/Linux administration courses (the closet you can get to a BSD OS in college), depending on the teacher and those who design the courses. However, it is run on a virtualized environment on top of... Microsoft Windows. At one point, Apple computers were used in American colleges, generally.

Microsoft makes sure that programmers will be using Microsoft products. Microsoft will be always strongly present in our education system..
Apple has done something similar in the past, by providing public schools with Macs, to gain them as repeat customers.

For those of you who don't know, Ninja_Root is best known for running a troll campaign at approximately 15-16 Linux forums last year.
Hmm... maybe I should do that. Kidding.
 
In Vietnam's Universities and Colleges (CS, IT, SE...), the BSDs are rarely mentioned. With them, Unix is a dead and obsolete (so does BSDs) and modern (replacement to) Unix, and superior is Linux.
 
microsoft or apple have today no worries to have. Many just use only MS or Apple, and mostly nothing else may come as alternative. Gaming for instance, young generations, will prefer to have Microsoft (or PSx, Xbox,..).
 
Apple's OSX is certified UNIX so don't tell those uninformed schools and professors.

Linux considers itself a Unix-like system but don't tell those uninformed schools and professors. They would be horrified.

Years ago, Vincent Price did a TV commercial for the butter industry when margarine producers would proudly claim their tubs tasted "just like butter". His commercial would end, "We would never say butter tastes just like margarine!".
 
My university time started with programming courses in pascal on 80186 machines running SINIX. Later there was HP-UX, solaris, irix, ... and no windows to be seen. But then again, this was a technical university. You could, as a student, obtain login on a cray if what you wanted to do was sufficiently scientific. And as long as you did not use more as some minutes of cpu time per week. On the smaller SGI, building and installing of xemacs took about 30 seconds cpu total (well, one node for longer, but the complete machine for that). Typing "make -j" and seeing 100 compiler processes pop up... ahh the times... our department admin is still a NetBSD contributor. Linux entered the student pools only after that. *sheds a tear*
 
My university time started with programming courses in pascal on 80186 machines running SINIX. Later there was HP-UX, solaris, irix, ... and no windiws to be seen. But then again, this was a technical university. You could, as a student, obtain login on a cray if what you wanted to do was sufficiently scientific. And as long as you did not use more as some minutes of cpu time per week. On the smaller SGI, building and installing of xemacs took about 30 seconds cpu total (well, one node for longer, but the complete machine for that). Typing "make -j" and seing 100 compiler processes pop up... ahh the times... our department admin is still a NetBSD contributor. Linux entered the student pools only after that. *sheds a tear*

You are a lucky one. Hears already pretty good.

MIT is actually a great supporter of BSD and GNU Linux.
 
In Vietnam's Universities and Colleges (CS, IT, SE...), the BSDs are rarely mentioned. With them, Unix is a dead and obsolete (so does BSDs) and modern (replacement to) Unix, and superior is Linux.

Those Vietnam Universities you mentioned obviously don't know what they are talking about and are naive.

UNIX isn't Linux but Linux can be a UNIX:
Inspur K-UX and EulerOS are both UNIX because they have the certification. They are however both downstream distributions of RedHat Enterprise Linux.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_UNIX_Specification#Inspur_K-UX
 
Apple is relatively less "devilish side" than Microsoft or much more Google.

The hidden part of Google is that they give completely nice applications (very slow) on your browser (bloat software by excellence) and the data are no longer yours.

The best experience I noticed is when I tried google drive. Try to believe that it isn't files/folder that are Google ones.

Facebook, ... all clouds,... people are fan of such things, because they have never ever heard or meant BSD.
 
Things like Google Drive are all well and good but as soon as you want to do something like sha1sum <myfile> or even git diff. You know... actual work, then it just becomes an absolute defective waste of time.

This and dropbox are products that I absolutely ban my students from using for the units I run. Unfortunately some of the other staff let them get away with it which is a shame. For assignments I required that they submit the .git or .svn folder so that I can see that they haven't just slapped the work together the night before, and that they are using correct tools.

I am now actually toying with the idea of making assignments Subversion only. That way I can guarantee they are not just jumping on the amateur GUI integration in Visual Studio and GitHub. I want them to at least think about code management, build system portability and future maintenance.
 
OMG I have recent stories I wish I could tell. This current generation has gone over the edge.

Where I attend classes I can assure University is as hostile as it can be and teachers couldn't stricter. In addition they also have the presumption to always be right, even when there are randomized control trials and metanalysis proving they're wrong, ignoring science is moving forward at a faster pace than the one they claim to keep up with. They want you to repat their exact words at exams and in most cases are close-minded towards changes, new ideas and personal initiative.

Not the same thing and I'm hesitant to go on about it but I've noticed an overemphasis on "feelings" and hyper-analysis of words and phrases one uses in every day conversation and young people will get angry if they perceive a word used in the wrong way, to them, even to the point of quitting their job. "Be nice" means "allow anything" even if it means the ground crumbling beneath their feet.

That's the Internet and the mom's basement guys which hang on it, it's not reality. I don't know if IT, electronics engineering, computer science courses got populated with sensitive cry-babies (not my impression looking at friends of mine and their colleagues); I can speak for Medicine, and in Medicine you're given 2 choices to pick out:

- you are a serious mature person, prone to work hard and do his/her best, who knows his/her place, humble enough to recon own's mistakes, ready to be ordered to do whatever whenever, speak and ask questions only when appropriate, respect elders, respect patients and look at the human beings behind them and not at diseases, be not shy when it comes to deal with blood, organic material, nastiness, be cold-blooded and professional when presented with life-threatening cases....

- you're out

- If opensource is used, maybe 1-10% of universities or less, then it will be Linux (between 1 and 10 pct),
- *BSD* is almost not at all used for educational purposes by universities. Almost 0 percent or below 1pct. Using BSD by universities or teachers is very rare.

A friend of mine did indeed have a pentesting course mostly focused on using Kali and its default userland, so it's not like Linux is completely ignored. Fedora is quite wide spread in Rome's Universities, there's even a Linux support community in my Univeristy (which I've been part of for some months), mostly driver by Engineering and IT students. However I was surprised to see how poorly competent they were around Unix-like systems and how they would boast their incompetence disguising for God's knowledge in front of newcomers; I left disappointed.
None of them had ever heard about BSDs or Solaris, neither had that IT student (now graduate) friend of mine.
The focus on Android is high: they were all trying to write some basic App in Java
 
A friend of mine did indeed have a pentesting course mostly focused on using Kali and its default userland, so it's not like Linux is completely ignored. Fedora is quite wide spread in Rome's Universities, there's even a Linux support community in my Univeristy (which I've been part of for some months), mostly driver by Engineering and IT students. However I was surprised to see how poorly competent they were around Unix-like systems and how they would boast their incompetence disguising for God's knowledge in front of newcomers; I left disappointed.
:(

There are in UK basically two interesting educative approaches : (1) you give materials (leading to fully dependence of student for his future career) or (2) education targets to let student look himself/herself for learning materials.
The second approach is most of the time more efficient on learning than the first approach. The first one is however the most classical educative method of most education systems in Europe/US/Asia.

You do not educate anyone if you make them completely depend on others and on a given system, right?
It depends on the people level of self responsibility and respect. Eventually, "I am happy", means "I" (me) right?
You are responsible of yourself. btw, do you want a glass of wine?


I am very proud of Ninja_Root. That was a very appropriate response and speaks volumes to me about him as a person. This proves to me he recognizes kindness when he sees it, responds appropriately with gratitude and is grateful when good will is shown to him.

For those of you who don't know, Ninja_Root is best known for running a troll campaign at approximately 15-16 Linux forums last year. I shudder to think the chaos his questions and games must have created among those poor flightless birds and the loss of bowel control they must have endured over his words...

Everybody hated him, most thought it was several people or that he was a bot. Having bots myself, I knew from his responses he was human and the same person. I saw good qualities in him others apparently could not, perhaps because I can relate to him where they can't. What he really needed was a kind word and a little friendly guidance, so I provided it. I only participated in one thread, but he soon stopped trolling.

He did have a little setback here, but even I have my bad days. This is a game called Bait the Trap, though his technique needs polish. You ask a loaded question you already know the answer to and when the time/response is right you snap the trap and trip them up. I don't know what he had in store for Oko, but I know the game well and the only way you can win is not to play. I knew it the moment I saw it last year and what initially caught my interest.

But he has agreed to allow me to advise him and offer guidance in an effort to maximize his potential as a productive person and help him to deal with people on a more effective basis. He has told me he will no longer troll any forums, has never lied to me and always treated me with the same courtesy and respect I show him.

I'm not his boss and he has free will to do as he pleases, but I expect good things from Ninja_Root, I've spoken with him several times, he is quite reasonable and open to suggestion and I don't hold any of his past deeds against him. People can change.

And if you happened to be among those who defecated on their webbed feet, you have my deepest sympathy. It won't happen again.

Now we need to get him to run a FreeBSD box and make a real Daemon out of him.

Maybe you, we,... could also chat on IRC sometime,... this would be more efficient sometimes to discuss BSD areas.
All rules for everyone the same. That's kind, kindness, respect of others, ... this should always be preserved. Sympathy to you guys.
 
There are in UK basically two interesting educative approaches : (1) you give materials (leading to fully dependence of student for his future career)
Heh, we call that spoonfeeding. My colleague does the best impression ;)

In all fairness, some students do require a bit more of it than others or they simply will not get a degree at the end. How this relates to FreeBSD is actually very much the point. The spoonfed ones will simply never encounter FreeBSD (or anything else) unless we specifically put it on the course. Justifying FreeBSD in the intended learning outcomes on a games course is a hard one to put by the external examiners but other courses might have a bit more luck.

I wish I could say that learning FreeBSD will "help students realise the inner workings of the PS4's Orbis OS"... But unfortunately that is simply not the case and the external examiners are not stupid people haha. In the past some of ours actually worked for Sony and were there to add an industry perspective.

Android is always a disappointment. I wish they would get rid of that terrible Java crap and make the Android NDK (and cmake) the premier and supported toolchain. C/C++ cross compilers are used for the majority of commercial console games and teaching anything else is just daft. Especially since the Java-centric mess (Gradle) is harder to learn than C++/CMake and changes every year meaning you have just wasted your time.
 
Heh, we call that spoonfeeding. My colleague does the best impression ;)

In all fairness, some students do require a bit more of it than others or they simply will not get a degree at the end. How this relates to FreeBSD is actually very much the point. The spoonfed ones will simply never encounter FreeBSD (or anything else) unless we specifically put it on the course. Justifying FreeBSD in the intended learning outcomes on a games course is a hard one to put by the external examiners but other courses might have a bit more luck.

I wish I could say that learning FreeBSD will "help students realise the inner workings of the PS4's Orbis OS"... But unfortunately that is simply not the case and the external examiners are not stupid people haha. In the past some of ours actually worked for Sony and were there to add an industry perspective.

Android is always a disappointment. I wish they would get rid of that terrible Java crap and make the Android NDK (and cmake) the premier and supported toolchain. C/C++ cross compilers are used for the majority of commercial console games and teaching anything else is just daft. Especially since the Java-centric mess (Gradle) is harder to learn than C++/CMake and changes every year meaning you have just wasted your time.

I understand you.

I think that SDK/C#/Java/... basically Windows programmers do not see the problems that their software is running slow, and they give their fault of programming for the hardware industry. The fault is the hardware industry that should give better machines.
 
Moores law says the performance doubles every 18 months. Gates law says that the performance of software halves every 12 month. I wonder why. I have two old color macs, this all-in-one periscop design. I use them as stylish book shelf blocks so nothing tumbles around. Two MB RAM and a 7MHz 68k, and you can run Word(tm) on them.
 
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