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From: dalamb@qucis.queensu.CA (David Lamb)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: CS education
Summary: Parnas says professionals don't need CS
Message-ID: <337@qusuntrc.queensu.CA>
Date: 17 Nov 89 18:11:09 GMT
References: <11064@cbnews.ATT.COM> <6961@hubcap.clemson.edu> <9734@june.cs.washington.edu> <4863@ae.sei.cmu.edu> <9760@june.cs.washington.edu>
Reply-To: dalamb@qucis.queensu.CA (David Lamb)
Organization: Queen's University, Kingston Ontario
Lines: 24

David Parnas, a fairly well-known name in Software Engineering, wrote a
report last winter about "Education for Computing Professionals", which
outlines his opinions about what undergraduate education practitioners
should have.  It includes very little of conventional computer science.
I don't have my copy handy and am too lazy to find it right now, but I can
recall a strong emphasis on basic hard science (physics and chemistry);
mathematics (including a couple of terms of calculus, which a lot of CS
programs de-emphasize); things from engineering programs typically ignored
in CS programs like control theory and signal processing.  He also doesn't
call for a lot of currently hot "Software Engineering" topics, either.

I think we have some copies left;  if you want one, send me a postal address
and I'll try to arrange to send you one.  Parnas may be intending to
publish it more widely; I'm not sure, and he's out of town right now.

David Alex Lamb
Department of Computing and Information Science
Queen's University
Kingston, Ontario, Canada K7L 3N6
(613) 545-6067

ARPA Internet:	David.Lamb@cs.cmu.edu
		dalamb@qucis.queensu.ca
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