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From: mitchell@community-chest.uucp (George Mitchell)
Newsgroups: comp.sw.components,comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Maintenance
Keywords: knowledge, expectations, fairness
Message-ID: <80225@linus.UUCP>
Date: 12 Nov 89 18:47:55 GMT
References: <1337@accuvax.nwu.edu> <11064@cbnews.ATT.COM> <78584@linus.UUCP> <376@cherry5.UUCP>
Sender: news@linus.UUCP
Reply-To: gmitchel@mitre.org (George Mitchell)
Organization: MITRE-McLean Software Engineering Laboratory
Lines: 25

In article <376@cherry5.UUCP> murphyn@cell.mot.COM (Neal P. Murphy) wrote:
`
`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.
`
This appears to address the quantitative rather than the qualitative
issue.  Certainly the size and difficulty of an assignment must be
appropriate for the level and scope of the course.  However, it is not
apparent (to me) why writing code "from scratch" is superior to
modifying code (good and bad) as a method for learning "how to make a
good product".  Indeed, it has been easier for me to learn both methods
and languages when significant portions of code were available as
examples.
--
/s/ George   vmail: 703/883-6029
email:  mitchell@community-chest.mitre.org    [alt: gmitchel@mitre.arpa]
snail:  GB Mitchell, MITRE, MS Z676, 7525 Colshire Dr, McLean, VA  22102