Wednesday, March 9, 2011

How to become a software developer without spending a penny...


This post is for all those engineering students of computer science in remote places of India who cannot afford hefty amount to buy licensed software... i faced this dilemma when i first started my software career... i would like to share my experience with you...

the best way to learn software is to use Linux. i use Ubuntu. hence i can advise on this. anyone can order an Ubuntu CD from the https://shipit.ubuntu.com/ . if someone has a braodband connection he can download Ubuntu from http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/download. however, installing Ubuntu is not the end... one will have to install the necessary package for C/C++ developement. These packages can be installed over the internet through the Synaptic Package Manager in Ubuntu desktop menu. The package for C/C++ is the build essential package... one may like to install the eclipse IDE from the software repository... the next thing is to install the OPEN-JDK package for working using Java... Once these things are done, the basic development environment for a student is done.

However, there are still some people who are simply familiar with Windows and do not have the money to buy Visual Studio...many poor students fall in the trap of pirated version of Visual Studio... but that is unethical... right....for those students i would suggest to go for Eclipse as the IDE... For a C/C++ compiler in a Windows machine one may go for Cygwin... this is how i have configured my Windows development environment...

however, its not only the development environment a student looks for... he needs a productivity tool... here again i would like to suggest the poor students not to fall in the trap of pirated MS-Office CD...if you want an offline productivity tool, go for free OpenOffice... and if you have a broadband connection, you may opt for Google Docs...

i think for a poor student in India, the tug of war between zeal to learn and ethics always plays havoc...i hope i have thrown some lights how to quench the thirst for knowledge without compromising on ethics...

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