5 ms·
In my experience, the hacker qualities of CS undergrads fall on a pretty broad spectrum. Even if the majority of students have trouble with basic Unix tasks, I'
by frustrated 17y ago
In my experience, the hacker qualities of CS undergrads fall on a pretty broad spectrum. Even if the majority of students have trouble with basic Unix tasks, I'm sure there will be 5% of them who will make excellent admins. And that's more than you need.
- javanix 17y agoSo how do you propose we set things up? Most of the need for CS labs is conformity in grading/teaching. I see the appeal - both fiscal and hacker-practical - for dropping the Uni labs, but I think that forcing 95% of CS majors to rely on 5% of their peers for support would cause enough grading and deadline ("I couldn't get the package to compile in time!") arguments that both faculty and undergrads would come to hate things even more. Granted, there are obvious upsides to forcing people to learn systems other than Windows for their own use, and I think enough people would eventually adapt, but I think the initial hurdle would just be too much to overcome in a decently sized department.
- wmf 17y agoIn college I often sshed from my computer into a lab computer, so I didn't really need the physical lab. Of course, maintaining servers may cost almost as much as maintaining a lab. Maybe preconfigured VM images are the answer.
- sketerpot 17y agoPeople ssh'd into a computer are seldom using all of its power. A big multicore server with plenty of RAM can support quite a few users more economically than individual computers. This is part of the reason why people invented timesharing OSes in the first place.