Anthony Ettinger wrote: > On 12/17/06, norman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> On Sun, 2006-12-17 at 14:23 +0100, Olivier Lecarme wrote: >>> Here is my own modest grain of salt in the discussion: >> < snip > >>> Somebody in this list said that teachers have the duty to teach what is >>> an industry standard. My own strong opinion is that one of my duties as >>> a university teacher is to try changing the industry standards, if I >>> think they are inappropriate. If my students need later to learn using >>> Photoshop or Vista, they will be able to learn them quickly and easily, >>> and with an acutely critical mind (hopefully). For the present, I prefer >>> to teach them Gimp and GNU/Linux, and to teach them not to accept any >>> so-called standard without discussion and thought. >> Surely, it is most important to teach students the principals involved >> in a subject so that, at a later stage, they are better informed when it >> comes to choosing in which direction to proceed. It is the >> responsibility of Industry, not universities, to provide the training >> needed for its employees to do the jobs required of them. The new >> graduate should be able to bring fresh ideas to the world of work not >> perpetuate the status quo and, thereby, help to ensure that we all >> benefit from progress and change. I could go on but this is probably not >> the place to do so. >> >> Norman > > > As a career development student I'd have to agree that it's more > important to learn general ideas and concepts, vs. the nitty gritty of > one particular application/language, unless you want to learn that > specific level of detail in an application. > > My wife teaches Gimp to her Jr. High computer class, about 90 students > a quarter...she wasn't teaching any advanced graphic editor at all > until I showed her Gimp and how it was just as good if not better than > the "industry standard" Photoshop, which is around $600+ for one > license (there probably is a "school edition", but you get my point). > Her students and school would never be able to afford that (nor should > they in my opinion) when there is a competing product that is open > source and available to all. > > Also, the "industry standard" is subjective at best and from my > perspective limited simply by choice. Take for excample programming - > what would you say is the "industry standard" language? There are so > many choices it's impossible to say. > >
Not to mention that "industry standard" is a often a function of marketing as opposed to technical superiority or codification by some sort of standards body. E.g., Windows. Bill Lee _______________________________________________ Gimp-user mailing list Gimp-user@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user
