Real World Examples

[Michael A Hamblin <michaelh@utdallas.edu>]

I visited my old high school today and spoke with my old computer science
teacher about some stuff.  He brought up Linux and we started discussing
options about what he could teach in terms of programming languages in
Linux.  I did have difficulty however, one of the cheif concerns was that
his students would be able to actully get jobs knowing what they knew of
various languages, he wasn't going to teach languages for the sake of
teaching languages. I suggested Perl as the biggy and PHP, and that Linux
would do great for any development with Java, C, C++, etc. Unfortunatly I
was unable to communicate to him how that was really relevant. He asked
about the resume effect of having Java or Perl on a resume as a high
school graduate, and I told him that either of those could land a graduate
from high school a job, though C or C++ probably wouldn't help because
employers are wary of high school C and C++ programmers. I tried to
explain how that Perl is very useful in web development and that PHP is
the wave of the future for Database backed sites, but that didn't click
either.

I finally figured out how to solve the communication problem.  I gave him
a real world example of how Perl/PHP on Linux can land someone a job. I've
been reading several IS type magazines, and one of the biggest problems
facing companies is warehousing systems. The old terminal system is slow,
inefficient, and not Y2K compliant. The problem is that all the Macs, PCs,
and whatever else could talk to the old system fine (can we say 3270
emulators?) but now a new system has to be developed to go across multiple
platforms.  In comes web based warehousing, with database backed web pages
and the whole bit.  Even a high-school graduate can get a job developing a
warehousing/inventory system if he has basic skills (Perl, PHP, Java,
Linux/UNIX, etc.) that can be taught at the High School level.

I suppose the moral to this is that there are some teachers who won't do
Linux just for the sake of doing it, or even because it would be free or
they'd be able to do more with it. They must have examples of how Linux is
practical in the real world. Perhaps a set of such examples would be
helpful. Any thoughts? This post is quick and dirty so feel free to
complain about it :)

--
Michael Hamblin            http://www.utdallas.edu/~michaelh/
michaelh@utdallas.edu      http://www.ductape.net/
UTD Linux User Group       TCS HelpDesk (x2911, assist@utdallas.edu)