Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site sdcsvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!sdcsvax!jvz From: jvz@sdcsvax.UUCP (John Van Zandt) Newsgroups: net.cse Subject: learning unix or not learning unix Message-ID: <392@sdcsvax.UUCP> Date: Wed, 17-Oct-84 23:11:27 EDT Article-I.D.: sdcsvax.392 Posted: Wed Oct 17 23:11:27 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 21-Oct-84 10:30:58 EDT Organization: EECS Dept. U.C. San Diego Lines: 27 Any college education is supposed to teach the fundamentals, not specific examples. A student leaving such an institution should be capable of learning and adapting to new environments and new ideas. Whether a student learns the details of any specific operating system or programming language is irrelevant. A student with a good education should be able to learn 'C' or UNIX very quickly; the principles are common across languages and O/S's. And the suggestion which was made that UNIX/C should be included because of popularity has problems, because popularity says nothing about the underlying principles which might be better taught in other ways. Remember, students going to a 4-year college/university have very few classes in their major field. Wasting one of the classes to learn the popular items might cause the student to miss something more fundamental which would be of help in the future. Remember, the difference between a trade school and a university is in what is taught and the expected product. Trade schools are great at teaching how to use a specific language/operating system. John Van Zandt University of California, San Diego ucbvax!sdcsvax!jvz