Steve Clayton reports on a British university that offers a B.Sc. in .NET ... well in Computer Science but with a deliberate emphasis on .NET technologies. Interesting approach since here in Canada universities like to distinguish themselves from colleges and trade schools by teaching theory and concepts and not worrying too much about what tools the students learn how to use along the way. The belief is that learning to use tools in general and learning the commonalities behind them (what is a compiler, what is a renderer, what are the aspects of identity management) has greater long term value than learning one particular tool or toolset. In general, I agree with that belief, and I've hired people from a wide variety of backgrounds over the two decades we've been in business. But on the other hand, if you're going to teach all that general stuff, why not teach it in the context of some tools that happen to be immediately useful in the work world?

Kate