[Edu-sig] re: Python Programming: An Introduction to ComputerScience

[Kirby Urner]

I dunno Arthur -- doesn't seem a cut and dried an issue to me.

Open source is a relatively recent phenomenon and until recently, just about
any language learning was going to involve using some commercial brand of
licensed software.  Oft times, it was a university that was the licensee, so
students didn't have a sense of paying for it (separately), but that was
before PCs came along.

Was it outrageous to be teaching Unix shell programming before Linux?

Java is likewise proprietary.  Do you have any outrage about public
institutions teaching it?

And I'm not sure to what extent the newest VB (.NET version) is actually
proprietary.  At least in the case of C#, the standard is open, meaning
anyone is welcome to write a C# compiler (which Miguel de Icaza has already
done, for Linux).

Actually, on checking the mono website, I see the VisualBasic.NET compiler
is already in development.
http://www.go-mono.com/mbas.html

Kirby

> Can we be outraged that VB is being taught on the public dime? VB is
> aggressively non-generic in many ways.  If Chevy decided it was in their
> business interest to have its own kind of engine which ran on witch oil,
> and
> the shop classes then followed up by teaching kids only how to work on
> Chevies...
> 
> Can we be outraged that a sense of outrage is being lost as to this issue?
> 
> Can we at least be strategically outraged ;)
> 
> Art