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From: bryan@sierra.Stanford.EDU (Doug L. Bryan)
Newsgroups: comp.sw.components
Subject: Re: Maintenance^2
Message-ID: <371@sierra.stanford.edu>
Date: 9 Nov 89 03:47:22 GMT
Sender: bryan@sierra.STANFORD.EDU (Doug L. Bryan)
Reply-To: bryan@sierra.Stanford.EDU (Doug L. Bryan)
Organization: Stanford University
Lines: 44


>`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.

(1) Inertia.  Computer science, like it or not, is young and not very
well understood.  Academia, like it or not, is very old and
deliberate.  Look at how many major universities have computer science
departments.  Not information science, not data processing, but
computer science.  Then look at how many of the universities have the
computer science department in the school of engineering.  Not the
school of science, not the school of linguistics, but the school of
engineering.  I think you'll see that computer science is still
working toward settling itself into academia.

(2) Zero mass -> zero inertia.  If computer science is young, then
software engineering has yet to be born.  The aforementioned
assignment using the 60,000 line system is desired by software
engineering educators, not computer science educators.  Only once
software engineering exists as a sort-of-understood disciple can it
begin to find its place in academia.

(I could go on and on about why IMHO s/w eng doesn't exists, but
this isn't the place for that thread.)

Other minor reasons why the above assignment isn't assigned include:

	- it's pretty difficult to grade,
	- there aren't many decent, easy to obtain, public-domain
	  60,000 line systems for educators to chose from, and
	- students hate it (yes, pleasing the customer is a part
	  of even education).

Flame me if you must,
doug

Disclaimer: I work for a university.  I have tried to teach software
engineering at this university.  I once gave an assignment like the
one being discussed and the students hated it.  My course was
canceled.