Why should we teach students Linux??

[Voigt, John C.]

On , Roger Oberholtzer [roger at opq.se] eloquently noted:

<disclaimer>
Apology in advance for MS Outhouse formatting - or lack thereof - I'm
required to use it. Sorry for the length.
</disclaimer>

Hi all,

<snip>

> We were looking for a newly educated person so that we could
> form their opinions on how we want things done :) Just about
> every applicant said that, instead, they knew ASP, .NET,
> Excel, Access. If it did not have a GUI, they were lost. They
> had heard of Linux, but were surprised to encounter a real
> user. It took a very long time to find someone. There is
> simply more to using a computer than what familiarity with MS
> OS brings to the table.

I'm a little late on this thread, sorry. I view the M$ vs. *NIX
comparison as the difference between training and education. I have two
BS degrees in the natural sciences, but I consider those mostly
training. I don't have a traditional liberal education; I didn't do much
study of the great books ie. philosophy, law, Latin, rhetoric, etc.
(excluding music). In many cases, I am severely lacking in the
traditional arts - I'm not very educated, but I'm reasonably well
trained ;-)

Learning Windows is basically training. Training works now, education
works always. Learning Linux (any *NIX or others) in addition to
Windows, gives one the opportunity to receive a more "well-rounded IT
education". My *NIX knowledge is self-taught, and lacking in areas in
which I haven't needed to delve so far. Having had to generate and tweak
config files from the old Slackware (whichever version had kernel 1.0.9)
days, through CND, Caldera, RedHat, SuSE, IRIX, Solaris (blech), etc. I
now have a better understanding of what's going on than most Windows
people in our organization who are "running the show". It was necessary
at that time to understand what was happening, just to get everything
working. 

I can now mostly understand what our "overlords" are trying to do, and
why it does or doesn't work. In many cases they just want to "buy a
solution" without really understanding why they need it in the first
place - it's easier that way, but if something breaks, they generally
don't know what to do, other than call the company who sold them the
"solution".

Point-n-click is training, is useful to a degree, however, a
well-rounded IT curriculum is IMHO infinitely more beneficial.
Teach/Learn all you can.

There's a difference between re-training and continuing education ;-)

L8R,

John V.
 -- 
  _/- John Voigt - K9GBO -----|- Registered Linux User #38558 --_/
 _/- Reclamation Specialist --|- IN Dept of Natural Resources -_/
_/------------- jvoigt at dnr.IN.gov - (812)665-2207 ------------_/

I used to have a handle on life, but it broke.