Borland/Turbo C++

[jephthah]

I don't understand. Nobody in the US uses this crappy compiler with it's non-standard libraries. No one in the Western World seems to use this. even in second world countries in central and south america, they don't use this.

so how is it that Borland seems to have a complete lockdown on universities and tech schools all over India and a few Eastern European and Asian countries?

From what I've heard/read, kids in India are supposedly threatened with failure, if they attempt to use another compiler other than their institutionally-enforced Borland/Turbo/Whatever Piece Of Crap it is that they have.

how did this come about? maybe i'm a conspiracy nut, but, well... it seems like a conspiracy.

[jephthah]

don't everyone all start talking at once....

[Nick Evan]

There is already a post about this somewhere here on Daniweb. It had something to do with the government or something.. But I can't seem to find the damn post anymore. I think it was Dave Sinkula's, but again: not sure.

[jephthah]

interesting. i'd like to hear more about that.

i've always suspected it was due to kickbacks or "donations" from Borland to university admins to enforce exclusive use of their crap.

if i really wanted to be a conspiracy nut, i'd say it was a malicious effort by Borland and western corporations to gimp India's students so their country's tech industry remains just competent enough to staff tech support call centers.

but that might be stretching it....

[Ancient Dragon]

Would you believe there are still a few commercial manufacturers who still use computers that run ancient MS-DOS 6.X operating system. I know of at least two who are still running some old MS-DOS programs that I wrote 12+ years ago. One reason they are still using them is because of their speed, the programs run on assembly lines with very little human interaction, consequently no GUI needed. And the company I worked for way back then is still maintaining those programs :icon_eek:

[Stefano Mtangoo]

Even here in Tanzania, they recommend it and all the labs are full of turbo C++. But it is not "enforced" it is that they are already there and amny of students here hates programming, why would they bother? After all they are after marks and not knowledge :(

I remember one lecturer giving us BC5 and guess what, I recoiled and used C::B and all who saw it loved it.

[barasurya]

Actually I myself use borland C compilers on my u about 7 years ago (dont think they still use it now).
And i think the reason is quite simple: the lecturer !!!
People tend to not like changes. And in my U, quite alot lecturer is teaching on subject like algorithm, c, and C++. So if they suddenly ask for an upgrade on the software, i don't think the lecturers will comply to that.:)

About enforce exclusive use (of a certain compiler), i don't think this one is imposed on my U. its just that if you use different compiler, different libraries and behaviour arise. And again the lecturer will need more time and difficulties in compiling/running the source code (assignment). so to make it simple I think the lecturer just made an announcement to use a certain tipe of compiler, and it's usually what is available on the campus machine.

[jephthah]

Would you believe there are still a few commercial manufacturers who still use computers that run ancient MS-DOS 6.X operating system. ....

i know and have worked at companies like that too. but it's a case-by-case situation, usually there is some reason (however shaky) that they keep those legacy systems in place, usually for manufacturing concerns.

what i'm talking about seems to be systemic to the entire university/tech school system in India: every single undergrad uses Turbo variant, and several have told me that their instructors will fail them if they use a different compiler.

what kind of educational system would insist on (or even provide as the default) such a broken-down piece of crap and hold it as a standard?

[Ancient Dragon]

There is nothing wrong with Turbo C if all they are going to teach is Programming 101 class, where students just learn about the basic structure of a C program (variables, loops etc). In that case Turbo C is just as good as any other compiler because what they teach has not changed much over the past 20 years. Since I'm not even remotely from India I have no clue what they use for higher-level programming classes. ~S.O.S~ should be in a good position to answer that.

[jephthah]

nothing wrong with turbo c for beginners, except that they post their uncompilable mess on forums like these, and desperately hope for someone to help them.

i could probably help them with basic questions, but tehn i see all these TurboC-specific libraries that wont compile, and i just glaze over and lose all ability to care.