Linux Research

[Thermonuclear]

So I'm a college student enrolled in Computer Engineering at the Oregon Institute of Technology. Unfortunately all the software classes are taught using Visual Studio on the Windows platform. I'm currently trying to write a paper proposing that some of the classes (ones which don't depend on Windows libraries and api's) switch to using Linux and open source tools. I'm trying to show that learning to develope on Linux will be beneficial to students but there are a few things I'm having trouble arguing.
1) Problems with Visual Studio itself, why are open source alternatives better?
2) What kinds of experiences are students missing out on when they program on the Windows platform?
3) What are some lessons that either can't be learned on Windows or can be better taught under Linux
4) Is there a demand for Engineers experienced in Linux development?
5) General Comparisons of Open Source IDE's vs Visual Studio

While links to articles/blogs/websites are preferred I would like to hear some feedback to hear what people think. Also if any of you at a different University want to comment on your schools Linux offerings I'd love to hear it.

[Lakshmipathi]

but there are a few things I'm having trouble arguing.

It's hard to convince people , unless they realize things by themselves
Anyway few of my inputs below -

1) Problems with Visual Studio itself, why are open source alternatives better?

I haven't used Visual Studio ,So I can't comment this - May be try The Linux Alternative Project for linux alternatives.

2) What kinds of experiences are students missing out on when they program on the Windows platform?
3) What are some lessons that either can't be learned on Windows or can be better taught under Linux

Knowledge !?. What will do if you find some virus (.exe) file creeps into windows machine. You are unable to remove it? Probably go and try free version of some anti-virus software ? If that didn't work - Purchase one? . But windows friend has some virus on this machine,he asked me a anti-virus program, I told him "I'm using Linux - So I don't have them but I can help you. Booted his machine via Live-CD and removed those files". If something goes wrong (for example,unable to terminate some process) Its extremely hard to find a solution with Windows.
With Linux,you have the complete control over our computer. If you can fine tune your hardware to produce best possible performance.
Depending on your hardware you can even choose which distro you want to run.

4) Is there a demand for Engineers experienced in Linux development?

Yes,there are openings.I heard there are company which hire people based on "github" projects .

5) General Comparisons of Open Source IDE's vs Visual Studio

I used Eclipse,Kdevelop . There won't be much difference it terms of GUI . But performance will be better in Linux.
[/QUOTE]

[arespi]

I think most of the answers you need is about openess. VB is very tied to the Windows api, so it teaches you to think the windows way of doing things.

In linux you can use a whole variety of languages, PHP, python, Ruby, Perl, C, etc. wich as being open can be used in another envoronments, even on windows, wich helps to make the code more portable between other plataforms.

There are lots of IDEs for languages running on linux, choose the one that fills your needs better.

[Roxoff]

1) Problems with Visual Studio itself, why are open source alternatives better?

Apart from VisualStudio 2010 being a bit slow, especially if you've installed some plugins which slow down even further it's initial load time, then I don't think the open source solutions are any better. In my experience they're not as good. I'm critical of many things Microsoft does, but its developer tools are excellent.

2) What kinds of experiences are students missing out on when they program on the Windows platform?

Very little. You should be able to learn most of the developer skills on either platform equally well.

3) What are some lessons that either can't be learned on Windows or can be better taught under Linux

Low level stuff, device drivers etc., are very different - in that world you're exposed to real differences in the way the operating systems work. At application level provided you're using a platform independent UI toolkit (such as QT) there isn't much difference for most areas.

4) Is there a demand for Engineers experienced in Linux development?

I've seen an increase in Linux on job specifications over the last year or so, but it's not really that significant at this time.

5) General Comparisons of Open Source IDE's vs Visual Studio

I've only used Eclipse (which I gave up on because I found it horrible), KDevelop (which I quite liked, but it was a bit twee and missing some stuff - it was a couple of years ago that I last used it tho), and various incarnations of VisualStudio (which was genuinely dreadful until visual studio 2003 came around)