Story: Microsoft offers free developer tools to students

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Fundamental Competence

If the student, as part of their college work gets the hang of development by taking part in an open source project, they can gain an excellent foundation understanding of their future job. They can also show real world work to potential future employers.

Are you saying that open source development and Microsoft based development are really that far different? I thought the big idea for Microsoft tools was that they are dead easy to pick up and use. C is C, C++ is C++, Java and C# are deliberately very similar; the really difficult and employable bit is that special spark that differentiates someone who can answer questions in an interview and someone who can crank out decent, testable, bug free code.

Our student will be able to prove what (s)he can do in the real world, by .. erm .. showing the interview panel the work already done. Not theoretical made up college projects, but the additions they have made to a real world open source project.

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