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From: ems@amdahl.UUCP (Edward Michael Smith)
Newsgroups: net.cse
Subject: Re: Teaching UNIX
Message-ID: <495@amdahl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 12-Nov-84 14:24:39 EST
Article-I.D.: amdahl.495
Posted: Mon Nov 12 14:24:39 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 13-Nov-84 08:26:45 EST
References: <88@athena.UUCP> <632@ames.UUCP>
Organization: Amdahl Corp, Sunnyvale CA
Lines: 34

> > ...
> > now, with the computer industry as it is, I'd "wonder" about an
> > undergraduate program which did not include any study of UNIX ...
> > Rik Smoody
> 
>                                           None of the local CSUs are
> running UNIX.  They can't afford to, nor do the local community colleges
> in Silicon Valley.  I think those of us in know about UNIX are shielded.
> 
> Most of these people attending the lower tiers are more concerned about
> BASIC, COBOL, some Ada, MS/DOS [or PC/DOS] (read: get a job) than about
> UNIX.
> 
> --eugene miya

It is an unfortunate fact that most of the software in the world of
business is written in COBOL and runs on IBM type machines.  The
schools are just providing the skills to work in the real world.
UNIX (tm) has caught on lately, but is still a gnat in comparison
with the IBM/COBOL market.  (Though with a lever long enough and a
place to program in C ...)  While it is sad that the schools look
more at the quantity of use of a language/OS than at the quality of
them, would all those applications programmers be better served by
C and UNIX or by COBOL/VM/MVS?

I hope that the schools are training for the past market and that
C will lead to the end of COBOL.  If this is true, we should see
a change taking place in the schools starting in a few years...
-- 

E. Michael Smith  ...!{hplabs,ihnp4,amd,nsc}!amdahl!ems

The opinions expressed by me are not necessarily those of anyone.
(How can a company have an opinion, anyway...)