How is the UK doing for Open Source Adoption?

munchola writes "CBRonline has put together an article looking at the state of open source adoption in the UK , bringing together data on central government policy and adoption within local government, public services, education, and the private sector. While overall the transition to OSS has been successful, there have been a few setbacks." From the article: "Not all of the organisations involved in the open source proof of concept trials have proceeded with open source adoption, however. In particular, the Central Scotland Police dealt a blow to open source supporters in August 2005 when it abandoned Linux and Sun's StarOffice in favour of Windows. The police force moved to StarOffice in 2000 and later adopted Linux for a new Area Command office at Falkirk. It also worked with IBM Corp to adopt Linux for a server-based document management system to meet Freedom of Information Act requirements, claiming savings of between 20,000 and 30,000 pounds ($36,000 and $54,000) over five years on hardware costs."

c++ elitism?

[abigsmurf]

Java is the best language for learning OOP, it's straightforward makes sense and most importantly : doesn't cause hours of headaches as students try to figure out what's causing a null pointer exception. Considering it's no longer reallu possible or practical to start students off on some form of BASIC they need a language that's fundamentally simple and has functions built in that make sense. Expecting students to learn how to make strings is something that should be one of the first things they learn yet C requires them to either use Arrays or use object functions to do so. Needing to know more advanced concepts to make one of the fundamental data types is just one of the things that makes C a language which is a nightmare to learn from scratch.