I know why Microsoft dominates the computer world...

It's because of our universities. I am taking an e-commerce course as an elective for my masters in telecom. management. Our schedule consists of 5 weeks of covering the .NET framework, versus one week covering J2EE. We have to make a website with a shopping cart, and connect it to a database. The prof said "If you like VB, you can use VB.NET. If you like Java, then use C#". :rolleyes: Of course, the site must run on IIS, using (I think) a SQL Server database. Last semester, I was in a class that was supposed to be an e-commerce type class, but basically was intro to information systems for MBA's. To make our webpages, we were told to use Front Page. To connect it to the Access "database", we were told to just use the built-in wizard in Front Page. It drives me nuts.

I'd like to hear from others in universities, to compare your experiences with the tools you are "supposed" to use.

Anyway, just wanted to vent. The title isn't really true. I hoped it would get attention.

My university is actually quite different. I am currently pursuing a MS in CS, after I received a BS in High Tech Mgmt. I do admit that one business course I took focused upon the use of Microsoft Excel, but that's it. Many of the CS courses focus purely upon the theory behind Computer Science. In the courses where programming is required, all programs are required to be UNIX compatible, though students can write the programs on thier home PCs and port it into UNIX if they are more comfortable doing so. Even the e-commerce courses focus upon UNIX servers or Oracle servers. While your premise may be accurate for your university, I think that it is really dependant upon the specific university and whoever writes their curriculum.

I personally prefer many of Microsoft's products over their *nix equivalents, from Office to VS.NET, from Windows to their server suite. I honestly wish that my campus focused more upon them. Instead, I am filling my free time studying for MS certifications (among a few others). I already have an OMC (Office Master Certification) in Office XP and an MCSE (Microsoft Systems Engineer) in both NT and 2000 (I got the NT one in high school), and I'm studying to get the MCSD (along with the MCAD, which is given to everyone who gets the MCSD, since the MCAD covers a subset of the material required for the MCSD), focusing upon C#.

AJ

all i can say is that i'll use notepad b4 i use frontpage
(not that noepad is bad, but for bigger websites something like dreamweaver is much quicker)

The Univ. I go to 'pushes' you to use MS products. . .if you use the comp labs there all you can use is VC++ and the other MS equivs, but the profs are usually pretty kewl, I got by my first C course using Borland and the second semester I used g++, but I could have lucked out with the second semester, the prof was a *nix enthusiast.

Well another thing is that Microsoft's products are very user-friendly, except for the part where they ship a couple of blue screens with their OSes. But the point is, Microsoft was really the "first" to create things that a six year old could use, literally. I mean imagine a six year old having to type in the commands to run word on his/her computer? That would be pretty weird. Just a thought, you know.


Regards,
Silentstalker

Quote:

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Originally posted here by silentstalker
I mean imagine a six year old having to type in the commands to run word on his/her computer? That would be pretty weird. Just a thought, you know.

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I remember writing basic programs on my C64 when I was six..
Now that was command line power !

Code:

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10 PRINT "C64 RULES ";
20 GOTO 10

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LoL I'm sure you're program was useful to many people... I wonder why you didn't put it on a disc and make four million copies of it and sell it? :)


Regards,
Silentstalker

<topic mode="off">I did...

Remember Windows 1.0 ??

you just seen a small part of the sourcecode !!</topic>

I have probably just seen THE source code ;)

Jinx you aren't supposed to use Goto or Gosub commands! lol, I remember those old days too.

Code:

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10 ? "The_Jinx is old like me"
20 ? "hahaha"
30 goto 10
40 end

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even though it never hits end :p




El Diablo

Back when I was in college there was a major emphasis on MS products - computer labs were all Windows 98/NT/2000 machines, Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, Frontpage were all taught in classes that I was forced to take - Microsoft was the norm. There were a few Unix labs, but those were basically for the Engineering students use. We were taught VB for business application development, Access for a database backend in our web apps, all built via MS InterDev. So the emphasis was all MS. I would have liked some more training on other platforms and such, but that's just not how it was going to be done.

I don't know if it has anything to do with MS products being the products that are most widely used in business or what, but I completely agree with your frustration about the whole situation.