Xref: utzoo comp.sw.components:391 comp.software-eng:2310
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!motcid!murphyn
From: murphyn@cell.mot.COM (Neal P. Murphy)
Newsgroups: comp.sw.components,comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Maintenance
Summary: Students are still learning
Keywords: knowledge, expectations, fairness
Message-ID: <376@cherry5.UUCP>
Date: 9 Nov 89 15:23:58 GMT
References: <1337@accuvax.nwu.edu> <11064@cbnews.ATT.COM> <78584@linus.UUCP>
Organization: Motorola Inc. - Cellular Infrastructure Div., Arlington Heights, IL 60004
Lines: 39

In article <78584@linus.UUCP> mitchell@community-chest.UUCP (George Mitchell) writes:
>In article <11064@cbnews.ATT.COM> kww@cbnews.ATT.COM
>(Kevin W. Wall,55212,cb,1B329,6148604775) writes:       `Just once I'd
>`like to see a homework assignment in some CS course be something like
>`	"add features X and Y to this 60,000 software system (which the
>`	students have never seen before) and turn it in next week".
>
>Would someone (or more) please address why this is not done.


There is a very good reason this is not done.  Could you add a manual choke
cable to your car's engine?  (Assuming it has a carb, not fuel injection.)
Could you install, to code requirements, a 20A electrical circuit to your house?
Could you ski Tuckerman Ravine from above the Lip to the bottom of the Headwall?
(Tuckerman is on Mt.  Washington, NH) If you can, great!  But think of the
millions of people who break into a sweat if they have to open the hood of their
car, replace a fuse in their fusebox, or walk to the corner store after a 4 inch
snowfall.  It wouldn't be fair to expect any of these people to perform the
specialized tasks I mentioned above, because they have barely mastered the
basics.

Students are in a similar position.  While they have may have solidly mastered
the basics, they have yet to learn how to make a good, fine, large software
system.  They couldn't possibly learn enough about the system to be modified to
properly make the changes.  I've been in this field for 10 years, and *I've*
just spent a month and a half reading 500 pages of source code and 500 pages of
documentation just to add features X and Y to a product here at Motorola.  I am
now at the point where I can make those changes. Students must learn how to make
a good product first. Once they have mastered that, then they can learn how to
enhance existing products. But by the time they get to that point, they have
already graduated and are in industry.

BTW, I've added manual chokes to several cars, I've wired in several circuits
(to code), and I fell off the lip at Tuckerman while hiking last April.  I'll
ski it the next time.  And, due to the good grace of cabinet maker, back in
Massachusetts, who gave me a chance and was willing to teach me, I am also a
cabinet maker. (No boast, just fact.) All that and a BSCS to boot.

NPN