<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr">Hi Yossi,<br><br>Regarding the portable document editing, I suggest introducing the students to latex at an early stage. In addition to being portable, it is also a handy (and sometimes mandatory) tool for writing papers.<br>
<br>From the other angle, I believe CS staff should be a model regarding open standards, by publishing documents (either slides or exercises) in open,portable formats such as pdf or simple text.<br><div class="gmail_quote">
<br>Ii suggest also to make the students aware of decent distributed version control tools (I'm aiming at a talk about hg in Haifux, somewhere down the queue).<br><br>Another tool with appeal on Linux is valgrind, which can make the students prefer working on Linux, because of the time saving they get.<br>
<br>And of course, I side with Eli regarding using a flexible tool chain, such that everyone may mix and match. An editor can be anything which can syntax-highlight and indent properly (nano/pico do not count, neither does textpad), and from my experience, in a mixed environment, users who are used to Windows prefer to stay with their Windows editor. However, an editor is just a typewriter when you actually use the unix tool chain after it. Specifically, the power of the gcc warning switches combined with -Werror and a decent makefile can save a lot of student time, and also has the potential of having students prefer Linux. <br>
<br>To sum it up - students need to be made aware of anchor applications on Linux which actually save lots of time, because time is the point which hurts the students who filled the feedback. Those applications will pull them to Linux, instead of being forced into it and hating it. Students who prefer not to use Linux should be able to do so partially (=at home), without incompatibility problems, by using an interchangeable tool chain and open fiie formats.<br>
<br>Orna.<div class="Ih2E3d"><br><br><br>2009/1/26 Yossi Gil <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:yossi.gil@gmail.com" target="_blank">yossi.gil@gmail.com</a>></span><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); border-right: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex; padding-right: 1ex;">
<div dir="ltr">Folks, here is the list of the unedited gripe list of students. As you will see, some of the problems are educational (MS WORD is sexy), other are organizational (not enough quota), while others are technical (Eclipse crashes). I am asking for your help mainly in dealing with the psychological issues... Make it easier and more exciting for the students to work with Linux.<div>
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