Hey everyone, apologies for not posting anything these last few days! Other classes got pretty homework-y, social obligations, and I discovered this new thing called reddit that I started browsing (usually anime, compsci, or anything I want to know more about - so many firsthand experiences out there in just about anything).
In lieu of an updated program on here I would like to explain my currect (mini?) dilemma regarding CS.
So last week I had my C++ midterm in the lab, lab computers only, 2 hrs, print it out using that barely-funded campus card. Now what really peeves me is that my campus is one of the many that utilize Windows for just about every CS lab. Only one lab has a dual boot Mac/Linux setup for anyone to use, and - this is the weird part - I never see them turned on, and if they are it's usually on the Mac boot, leaving the IT guy to clean out all the incriminating history. (people leave too quickly to log out?) During homework lab, I do the best I can to output a working program by the end of lab, using my favorite portable netbook running Xubuntu linux. Everyone else either uses the vanilla lab PCs with Visual Studio (3 different years installed - wth?), their own Windows with VS, or their fancy Macbooks which I guess are running xCode, NetBeans, or Eclipse. I wear, I'm the only one running any form of Linux, it's really sad. At least no one is staring at me like I'm an alien (thanks reddit), frankly because in my opinion they don't care what I'm running as long as I don't freak out over the code not working 5 minutes before it's due.
So why did I freak out over the midterm? These were programs I had done before and knew the functions to work with in order to output the results. It was being forced into an environment that I was entirely unfamiliar with that made things go downhill for me during the exam. Visual Studio was being totally unhelpful, would compile but not run my programs due to some default header file native only to VS that I never saw before. I longed to ssh into the campus's sole Linux server to compile my code from Notepad++, however being a wuss, I feared potential reprecussions from using a web browser to look up how to compile a program remotely, as obviously no web-searches were allowed for an exam. So I felt incredibly handicapped and depressed listening to the other students clacking away at 150wpm on their workstations, clearly competent with VS's style because, that's what they used throughout the intro course and the last 5 projects. To compound my embarrassment I really cannot touch type, having hen-pecked my way through high school by getting all my typing done at home in privacy. By the time it came to print, I was a wreck internally. I longed for the familiarity of g++ and the terminal as I reluctantly turned in my psuedo-programs hoping for 1 pt of efforts.
This literal complete turnaround in my experience with programming (before I had been getting high scores on nearly every homework) caused me to think about OS use within comp sci. Is it "normal" to utilize Windows everywhere, even within (what I supposed to be) the supposedly neutral CS field? (I swear they have some big-bucks contract with Microsoft! Mac and Linux machines are almost non-existent, save for the Macs people bring as personal toys) For a programmer, isn't relying on the Windows-style of doing things a bit like what all the other majors are doing? and then there's the people who will readily whip out their iPhones if no lab is assigned, leaving the lab PCs designated as the workplace. For CS, I believe that every technology should be explored regardless of who makes it (eventually, being on the "outside" of everything all the time feels isolating, at least that's what I'm feeling), and one shouldn't be favored for the other. Windows (and Pepsi) currently have a huge monopoly at my uni, and unfortunately for the Mac/independent Linux users, programming and hunting down a Coke have become much harder than necessary to achieve.
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