Many of you, I'd wager, came onto the computing scene when "Windows desktops" and then "laptops" were considered normal. And "the world wide web" was the Next Big Thing, with stupendous stock-option valuations to prove it.

Today, the computing world is shifting again ... following the same inexorable course that it always has ... such that, if you today find yourself a "Linux " you are in exactly the right place, at almost-exactly the right time.

You see, "Windows is as dead as COBOL." Which means, of course, that it is not dead at all (nothing in the world of computing ever truly is...); merely insignificant. There will continue to be desktops and laptops. There will continue to be spreadsheets by the billions. Windows users will never learn how to log-on as anything other than "Administrator." But "the unbiquitous and universal Windows machine" is going away for good ...

... and so is the "web site."

The true coffin-nail for Windows is not a general dislike for Bill Gates; it is the unmistakable market-benefit of open source software environments. The Linux operating-system runs on more than 25 different hardware platforms, with not a single royalty-payment to be found anywhere. This means that it, alone (almost...), can go anywhere the hardware-engineers may want to take us, and that it can actually keep up with them without once "reinventing the wheel."

And it is, in my opinion, those hardware engineers who are "driving the market bus" here. You don't do things with web-sites anymore: you use iPhone apps, or any one of the other Unix/Linux based portable devices that fit so easily into your pocket. For the first time in history, software engineers can adapt and re-use software assets to deliver within tight time-and-budget constraints.

Therefore, Unix/Linux, not Microsoft Windows, will be "the operating environment that you absolutely must know," basically "at the exclusion of all others." You'll find that it is, or that it can be, every bit as intricate and as complicated as the other environments ... but it's all open. Furthermore, if you do come from a Windows environment, you'll find that actually doesn't take too long to get your feet on the ground, once you rationalize with the rather-stupendous number of choices that are available to you in the Unix/Linux worlds.

Even more-so than Windows, this is a very big world, and it would be quite unrealistic for you to think that you can somehow "stuff it all in-between your two ears." It would be far more profitable, and practical, for you to simply focus your attentions on becoming a very good researcher, learning how to troll through a vast worldwide network of information to come up with the particular answers that you want.