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From: murphyn@cell.mot.COM (Neal P. Murphy)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: CS education
Summary: It needs to be more/better formalized
Message-ID: <388@cherry5.UUCP>
Date: 14 Nov 89 15:22:40 GMT
References: <16028@duke.cs.duke.edu> <7024@hubcap.clemson.edu>
Organization: Motorola Inc. - Cellular Infrastructure Div., Arlington Heights, IL 60004
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In article <7024@hubcap.clemson.edu> billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu@hubcap.clemson.edu writes:
>...
>    actually address the specific point I raised: that a strengthened 
>    software engineering requirement would be a more productive use of
>    student time than an OS requirement, for those students who are not 
>    to become OS professionals. 
>...

Addressing undergraduate education, allow me to stand by my original statement
>in Newsgroups:  comp.software-eng
>   Subject: Re: Maintenance
>   Message-ID:  <1989Nov6.192410.13870@world.std.com>
>   References: <1337@accuvax.nwu.edu> <11064@cbnews.ATT.COM>
that writing an operating system is an excellent means of teaching a student:
  1) How to use most of what he has learned while in school
  2) That there is at least one practical use for each of the many things he
     has learned while in school

Even in light of the topic here in Comp.Edu, the statement stands.  However, I
do agree that more software engineering needs to be taught.  (Computing
educators need to learn a great deal as well.  More on this later.)  A software
engineering thread should be introduced in the earliest CS courses, increasing
in size and strength to approximate re-rod in the advanced courses.  Students
today need to learn not only how to do what will be required of them in
industry, but they also need to learn how to do it well, how to do it safely,
how to do it within ethical and moral guidelines.  In addition, they also need
to learn how to learn on their own.  (After all, this is what college is all
about, is it not?  In grammar school, we are taught the basics.  In high school,
we learn the fundamentals of business and science and industry.  In college, we
learn how to learn on our own, how to teach ourselves.)

Now, computing educators (and educators in general) still have a lot to learn.
For that matter, everyone who is required to develop a curriculum should be
required to study the development of computer science over the past 20 years.
Mistakes have been made, essentials have been overlooked, and egos have halted
further development.  But, we can all see that it is a rapid development of a
new branch of knowledge, a development the likes of which we have not before had
the opportunity to document and examine.  My examination of it leads me to
believe that we must determine what the basics and fundamentals are, and remove
the teaching of these to grammar and high school levels, where they belong.
This will leave the study of advanced computing science and software engineering
to those in college, where they can concentrate on formalizing their personal
education process, i.e., how to learn to do new tasks within the afore-mentioned
safety, moral, ethical, and quality guidelines.

Of course, once this is done, where does that leave graduate programs? (I am now
addressing post-graduate education.) I suspect that most graduate programs are
similar to the one with which I am familiar. It is designed for students who
have a degree in an unrelated field. They would be better off enrolling in the
undergraduate program. A graduate program should be reserved for advanced
(beyond undergraduate) study in the particular field. Upon enrollment in a
graduate CS program, you would already be well-versed in the practices and
purposes of software engineering, and in the fundamental structures and methods
of software design. You could then concentrate on building new structures and
methods based on those you already know.

Computing education still needs to have formal and standard practices and
methods defined, from the grammar school level all the way up to post-graduate
study. Am I upset or disappointed at its current state? No, because the field is
only twenty years old. Let's not argue over who is right and who is wrong. Let
us discuss the issues and try to determine the better course of action, and then
implement the action in our education system.

NPN
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