Linux & Teachers - Part II

This is the second part to the Linux & Teachers written by my friend Ankur who blogs here:
This piece might come across as one intended to bad mouth my own college, but I have a sneaking suspicion that things aren’t all rosy in other parts of the country either.
I suppose every geek has had this same feeling before. You take a seat in the front row of your first Introduction to Programming lecture, all worked up about the fact that here, finally, is a class you can be on top of. The professor walks in, gives a little introduction, and you realize it’s going to be a long, long semester.
Today I decided to make a list of all the atrocities committed by my Introduction to Programming professor. I wasn’t expecting much because, even though he sounded like a complete knucklehead to the geek inside me, I was sure he at least knew the textbook inside-out. I was, as one would expect, wrong. So, hackers, get ready to cringe. Here’s my list.

• … Linux is basically a DOS based OS.
• These days we are using 128 and 256 bit processors.
• A compiler is a software that converts code written in a particular programming language to machine code. To compile a program, you must hit ALT+F9. (It took me a while to realize he was talking about the Borland Turbo C++ IDE from 1992, a prehistoric compiler Indian colleges use for all C and C++ courses.)
• The object code generated by a C++ compiler is almost identical to that produced by a Java compiler.
• The first high level language was Ada, also known as Smalltalk. (This was a big WTF moment.)
• The second high level language was COBOL, which was an improvement over Ada. (Cringe, cringe, cringe.)
• FOTRAN came after COBOL. (No, “FOTRAN” is not a typo. This is what he said.)
• FOTRAN, COBOL, Ada and Smalltalk were not general purpose languages.
• This one is classic: C was the first language to run on UNIX systems. All languages before C ran only on Windows.

I still haven’t completely recovered from the shock.

Linux & Teachers

As few of you know, I'm a Computer Science student currently studying in F.E..

The other day I was taking print outs from the college PC lab (as we call it). The official college time was over. Apart from me there was another friend of mine and our Computer Programming teacher. She was busy checking our assignments. I booted one PC and was pleasantly surprised to find good ol' Ubuntu booting up. Normally here in India Windows is the norm in  schools, universities and colleges. Hell, we still use Borland Turbo C compilers which are the relics from the stone age of modern computing.

I asked my teacher , "Miss, who installed Linux on that PC?"

and she replied, "That isn't Linux - It is Ubuntu."

I found it hard not to laugh, I was almost ROFL.

Some other guys from other colleges too have experienced such experiences.
One of my friends teacher believes that Linux is a DOS based OS.

You must have read about this particular teacher named Karen who punished a student because he was giving away free Linux CDs. She believes that Linux is illegal.

Guess teachers and Linux will always be at odds.

I blog about my college at Vartak Blogs