This is interesting! Thanks for sharing!

Well, one context that I left out was that the course was pretty simple. We learned some basic loops, graphing, matrix operations, and writing some basic scripts to solve some problems. If you need a higher level functionality, then you'd probably struggle with GNU Octave, I don't know.

So it can be done, simple as that.

I've just discovered Thonny! I'm not sure of the exact advantages over just vanilla Python though. Maybe because it's an IDE.

It really depends on the course, but I think for general undergrad stuff, Python should be capable for most things.

I'm actually from Asia. I don't understand requiring students to purchase a certain resource, if they're already available elsewhere, or if similar resources already exist. I mean I understand it, I just don't like the whole system.

Yeah, the theft comes from stealing someone's labour, rather than their products. But it depends on the situation though.

So basically, the design of OSes in the future will be different? Maybe I don't know enough about microkernels and OSes.

Nah, they only play SuperTuxKart and 0 A.D. Okay I'm kidding, but yea, gaming is another section that needs attention if the Linux world wants to invite more people into it.

As another commentor said, it kinda depends on what is the purpose of the course. If the purpose was to actually teach you the MATLAB ecosystem, then yea, sure, teach it all you want, but the institution has to provide the software.

But for an intro course? The students should probably be able to just use what they want.

Yeah, then other languages should be allowed as well.

I agree with that. It's similar to Photoshop or Premier Pro. Sure, you could maybe, perhaps use open-source alternatives. But you'll have to get used to a different set of (usually separate) software, dissimilar to what people all over the world uses.

Even though I'm generally for open-source software, I know that in heavy duty use, highly niche specialisations, and in industries in general it's difficult to find equally competent software. That's why I put emphasize on my specific situation, where it's an introductory course. Heck, we ended up doing what could be done in Python anyway.

the kernel is what matters

Fundamentally, that's true. Of course the average user isn't going to think or probably even know what a kernel is, nor I'm unsure if they even have to.

containerisation is bloat, electron is bloat

I'm not a technical expert, but while containerisation is bloat, it's modularity is a plus, I think. Conceptually I like it.

Sheesh. But I guess the thinking is that if it works, then why change it, right?

If you can do every single thing that you mentioned either online or offline but with the browser (or browser engine based applications), would you?

I'm not sure what would have happened had I insisted. I imagine that they'd probably ask us to obtain it on our own though, based on my memory that they were insistent that everybody must have it.

I see. That's a bit rough that we require proprietary software to graduate.

That's an interesting perspective actually, since it gets into all sorts of weirdness and trickiness of the intellectual property concept. Perhaps because of two factors: (i) we treat digital data as fundamentally different from physical objects, and (ii) theft intuitively implies that the original object is no longer with the owner, but with piracy, you're simply making a copy-and-paste, rather than a cut-and-paste.

I think that's ideal! It's supposed to be a lesson on numerical methods, not MATLAB.