Xref: utzoo comp.edu:2647 comp.software-eng:2382
Path: utzoo!yunexus!ists!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!romp!auschs!d75!awdprime!woan.austin.ibm.com!ron
From: ron@woan.austin.ibm.com (Ronald S. Woan)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: CS education
Message-ID: <876@awdprime.UUCP>
Date: 15 Nov 89 22:29:25 GMT
Article-I.D.: awdprime.876
References: <4943@ae.sei.cmu.edu> <7024@hubcap.clemson.edu> <7036@hubcap.clemson.edu>
Sender: news@awdprime.UUCP
Reply-To: @cs.utexas.edu:ibmaus!auschs!woan.austin.ibm.com!ron
Followup-To: comp.edu
Organization: IBM-Austin, AWD
Lines: 29

In article <4943@ae.sei.cmu.edu>, rsd@sei.cmu.edu (Richard S
D'Ippolito) writes: 
> In article <7036@hubcap.clemson.edu> A. Jeff Offutt writes: 
> > >Here's one of my ideas for a perfect software engineering project: 
> > An operating system. ...Another one: A compiler 
> > Please explain how these require any engineering methodsand relate to 
> anything that goes on in the industries that produce software-dependent 
> systems.

  I don't know what the original poster intended, but here's a few
reasons that I feel that both of these projects are good. Operating
systems projects can teach students about scheduling and interprocess
communications and other concepts that can be applied to a great
variety of general programs. Not to mention that the better you
understand operating systems designs, the more able you will be to
take advantage of the operating systems. In much the same light,
compiler projects can give programmers have a good idea of how to
write code that can be better optimized in general. Not to mention,
the experience with lexical analysis and parsing can be very valuable
in many situations. In fact, just today I had to work with a YACC-like
program for generating a parser in a CAD design tool.

						Ron

+-----All Views Expressed Are My Own And Are Not Necessarily Shared By------+
+------------------------------My Employer----------------------------------+
+ Ronald S. Woan  (IBM VNET)WOAN AT AUSTIN, (AUSTIN)ron@woan.austin.ibm.com +
+ outside of IBM       @cs.utexas.edu:ibmaus!auschs!woan.austin.ibm.com!ron +
+ last resort                                        woan@peyote.cactus.org +