5 ms·

When I did a 4 year CS degree at a UK university in the 1980s I don't think I touched anything from Microsoft for the entire time I was there!

by arethuza 11mo ago

aeyes 11mo ago
Because for a CS degree students are expected to work with other systems and the software needed to complete the course work is usually low level. Even when I did my CS degree 20 years ago our labs were Linux and Solaris. For other degrees you need software which only runs on Windows. It might also help that Microsoft was totally irrelevant in the professional world in the 80s.
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
cuttothechase 11mo ago
I am pretty sure you wouldn't have touched anything from google and meta as well.
blibble 11mo ago
same for me in the 2000s unfortunately the university has gone full MS since then
pjmlp 11mo ago
It was much easier in 1980's, unless you would be using CP/M or MS-DOS.
godzillabrennus 11mo ago
Students go to university to get an education and obtain employment. All larger employers use Microsoft. Universities would be failing students by not giving them an education on their technologies. Microsoft gives the Universities and their students steep discounts or free software to propagate this.
- venturecruelty 11mo ago
  Companies can pay to train their employees on the software that they use. This is neither the responsibility of the secondary education system nor the Dutch taxpayers.
Avshalom 11mo ago
I did a 4 year degree in earth science minor in CS graduating in 2019 and had to touch microsoft for arcgis in one class, and an excel spreadsheet in another. Like yeah if you have a lot of pre-existing infrastructure migration can be a pain but MS is not in anyway necessary.
- mseri 11mo ago
  As much as I agree with the need for digital independence and the fact that universities (and governments) in Europe are over reliant on US tech, it is not as simple as you describe. There is a lot more happening in the administrative and infrastructural side of things in most universities that one barely observes as student. So every change needs to take also that into account, the management and maintenance of services and infrastructures that must reliably support thousands of users, with relatively strict privacy and security standards, and their migration. See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46080495 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46080495
hbn 11mo ago
And surely nothing has changed about the world in the last 40 years
WalterBright 11mo ago
When I did a 4 year stint in college, nobody had ever heard of Microsoft.
- fuzzfactor 11mo ago
  My first experience with an original IBM PC, I wondered what this thing called Microsoft was. It just didn't seem right. Why would you need that? What if you just wanted a plain IBM computer? Why isn't that the mainstream without need for any third party software? Or is it software? How do people do without it? What if you just want to compute? Not use the PC as an office machine or do any gaming? Is this Microsoft content really essential? Isn't the hardware any good without a Microsoft? How would you go about doing that? I guess Linus eventually asked himself the same kind of things and drove it home :)
canpan 11mo ago
Same here in 2000s, studying CS was completely MS free. The professors mostly used linux or Mac anyhow. The university system for students was web based. Papers were written in LaTeX with official template. The email system was hosted by the university and not based on outlook. Math related professors did not even use a PC at all during class but a blackboard/OHP/paper. So I don't see a problem for the netherlands..

When I did a 4 year CS degree at a UK university in the 1980s I don't think I touched anything from Microsoft for the entire time I was there!

aeyes 11mo ago

Because for a CS degree students are expected to work with other systems and the software needed to complete the course work is usually low level. Even when I did my CS degree 20 years ago our labs were Linux and Solaris. For other degrees you need software which only runs on Windows. It might also help that Microsoft was totally irrelevant in the professional world in the 80s.

deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]

cuttothechase 11mo ago

I am pretty sure you wouldn't have touched anything from google and meta as well.

blibble 11mo ago

same for me in the 2000s unfortunately the university has gone full MS since then

pjmlp 11mo ago

It was much easier in 1980's, unless you would be using CP/M or MS-DOS.

godzillabrennus 11mo ago

Students go to university to get an education and obtain employment. All larger employers use Microsoft. Universities would be failing students by not giving them an education on their technologies. Microsoft gives the Universities and their students steep discounts or free software to propagate this.

venturecruelty 11mo ago
Companies can pay to train their employees on the software that they use. This is neither the responsibility of the secondary education system nor the Dutch taxpayers.

Avshalom 11mo ago

I did a 4 year degree in earth science minor in CS graduating in 2019 and had to touch microsoft for arcgis in one class, and an excel spreadsheet in another. Like yeah if you have a lot of pre-existing infrastructure migration can be a pain but MS is not in anyway necessary.

mseri 11mo ago
As much as I agree with the need for digital independence and the fact that universities (and governments) in Europe are over reliant on US tech, it is not as simple as you describe. There is a lot more happening in the administrative and infrastructural side of things in most universities that one barely observes as student. So every change needs to take also that into account, the management and maintenance of services and infrastructures that must reliably support thousands of users, with relatively strict privacy and security standards, and their migration. See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46080495 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46080495

hbn 11mo ago

And surely nothing has changed about the world in the last 40 years

WalterBright 11mo ago

When I did a 4 year stint in college, nobody had ever heard of Microsoft.

fuzzfactor 11mo ago
My first experience with an original IBM PC, I wondered what this thing called Microsoft was. It just didn't seem right. Why would you need that? What if you just wanted a plain IBM computer? Why isn't that the mainstream without need for any third party software? Or is it software? How do people do without it? What if you just want to compute? Not use the PC as an office machine or do any gaming? Is this Microsoft content really essential? Isn't the hardware any good without a Microsoft? How would you go about doing that? I guess Linus eventually asked himself the same kind of things and drove it home :)

canpan 11mo ago

Same here in 2000s, studying CS was completely MS free. The professors mostly used linux or Mac anyhow. The university system for students was web based. Papers were written in LaTeX with official template. The email system was hosted by the university and not based on outlook. Math related professors did not even use a PC at all during class but a blackboard/OHP/paper. So I don't see a problem for the netherlands..