So I don’t really have a creative title for this. “FINAL POST!!!!!!!!!!!1111!!!!!!!!1!1!” just didn’t quite seem appropriate, even if it is my 10th, and last required post.
This class is essentially over. We have 1 more class meeting, and a couple more assignments (whatever happened to the “make an assignment” assignment? I thought it was supposed to be due by now, but it hasn’t even been posted yet…maybe we should just all get credit for it).
Our final project is coming along, even though we have a couple glitches to work on. And by a couple, I mean more than I’d like to think about. We have a good group, but it isn’t easy given how little guidance was given on the project. Hopefully we will be able to get everything done before our deadline in a week.
I’m not sure that this class really succeeded in its goal, since I have actually used my Linux build less later in the semester than I did earlier, and from what I’ve seen, I am not the only one. Not sure if it is the style of the class or the material or what, but it just seems to end up that way.
I wonder why people have been using Linux less later in the semester, o you have any theories? I wonder if it’s because we’ve moved beyond explicit terminal commands and are in the realm of writing code, and folks are just more comfortable writing code in a more familiar environment? Or is there something else?
Do you have any suggestions that would help make the class more effective?
I can’t speak for the entire class, but I know that I have been mainly stuck in windows due to my other classes. Most of them require the use of programs that you can’t use on Linux. So it becomes easier for me to just use cygwin in windows when I need to do anything for this class. It’s not perfect by any means, but it gets the job done.
Writing code probably does have a large part in this. I’ve always just used text editors within cygwin (generally nano) to write my code, then gcc to compile, but all engineering students are taught how to use MS visual studio, which can sometimes act as a crutch. If we could get the ECE1574 class to utilize gcc and the CLI to write/compile code, the class would probably utilize Linux more.
Beyond that, one thing that may help is not just saying “you need this OS”, but to also show that there are other options like cygwin, which allows for a Linux-like environment.
http://www.cygwin.com/