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From: billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu@hubcap.clemson.edu (William Thomas Wolfe, 2847 )
Newsgroups: comp.edu,comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: CS education
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Date: 14 Nov 89 23:33:31 GMT
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From ofut@hubcap.clemson.edu (A. Jeff Offutt):
> Here's one of my ideas for a perfect software engineering project:
> An operating system.  Another one: A compiler.  There are many good 
> software engineering projects ... luckily some of them are often used 
> in other classes.  Saves us the trouble of teaching all that "application
> dependent knowledge" before starting the project ... :-)

    And each of these will be excellent software engineering projects
    for people for which these application domains are relevant.  There 
    are many domains in which software engineering projects can be 
    done; information systems domains, for example.  And in courses 
    on information systems, it is reasonable to expect that a software 
    engineering project will be completed as part of the course.  But 
    just as it is not reasonable to require operating systems people 
    to complete an information systems project, neither is it reasonable 
    to require people who wish to become information systems software 
    engineers to complete an operating systems project.  Instead,
    there exist domains which are reasonably uncomplicated, such as
    gradesheet management, which are quite well-suited for use as a
    basis for a general-purpose software engineering project.  Since 
    the domain is simple and easily understood, the software engineering
    course can focus instead upon software development processes,  
    software project management, requirements analysis, technical 
    communication, configuration management, quality assurance, 
    formality, performance analysis, metrics, standards, verification 
    and validation, security, human factors, and so on; topics which
    will be of considerably greater value to the future practitioner.
     
    Once such a general-purpose software engineering project has been
    completed as part of the first software engineering course, the
    student can proceed into more specific domains (yes, even operating
    systems) in which their software engineering skills can be applied.
    
    Since more advanced software engineering material is highly
    desirable for any future practitioner, I expect that such advanced 
    courses will become quite popular once students find themselves 
    liberated from the burden of studying irrelevant domains. 


    Bill Wolfe, wtwolfe@hubcap.clemson.edu