Microsoft continued its push to help acclimate academic computer
science programs to its .NET Framework Thursday with a user interface that
helps teachers and students use their Java-based curriculum with Visual
Studio .NET 2003.
The Microsoft Supplemental User Interface (UI) Library for Visual J# .NET
functions somewhat like the 2 JFC Swing specification, a family of Java
class libraries provided as part of J2SE to support building graphical user
interfaces (GUIs) and graphics functionality for Java applications.
The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant said it hopes the UI will make it easier
for teachers to use curricula based on Swing, with the addition of textbook examples with Visual Studio .NET 2003 and the
Microsoft .NET Framework.
With the UI library, teachers who already have Swing-based source code now
can adopt Visual J# .NET with few changes to the source code. Students can
then use the libraries for programming assignments.
“We liked what we saw in Visual J# .NET, but one critical piece Microsoft
needed was support for Swing curricula already in practice today,” said
Brian Scarbeau, AP Computer Science teacher at Lake Highland Preparatory
School in Orlando, Fla. “They took that feedback to heart and made Visual J#
.NET an appealing tool to use in the classroom.”
Bridging the gap between .NET and Java is another example of the company’s
willingness to stray from its usual competitive leanings to cater to large
markets.
The offering is the latest in a series of maneuvers Microsoft has been
making to court academia with its Visual Studio .NET development platform,
which includes the Shared Source
Initiative, a program which gives access to the Windows source code to
certain customers, partners, developers and academics.
That move came in part because open-source operating system Linux has proven
extremely appealing to students, who can test it as they wish. Microsoft’s
overtures to academia could help keep them from getting frozen out of some
lucrative business. Opening up Windows code, therefore, is as much a smart
business decision as it is an olive branch.
Microsoft stepped
up its offerings to academia this past February by offering a Visual
Studio .NET 2003 Academic Edition to U.S. schools in conjunction with
professional versions of the development environment.
Microsoft also released a sample application used by the AP Computer Science
program in high schools to teach students object-oriented programming
techniques. Dubbed the Microsoft MBS Case Study for Visual J# .NET, the
application allows students to build “fish classes” that are applied to an
aquarium simulation.
The Supplemental UI Library is available as a free download here. The MBS Case Study
is available as a free download from the Visual J# .NET Web site
