Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!bu.edu!inmet!justin
From: justin@inmet.inmet.com
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Computing in the Real World
Message-ID: <446400001@inmet>
Date: 14 Jun 91 17:30:00 GMT
Lines: 46
Nf-ID: #N:inmet:446400001:000:1860
Nf-From: inmet.inmet.com!justin    Jun 14 13:30:00 1991


I don't know if this group is necessarily the right place to post this,
but it seems like the closest, and I just *have* to get this off of my
chest.

Lately, I've been reading up on methodologies for analyzing and designing
large systems (Yourdon, DeMarco, et al), and found myself thinking,
"Geez, why didn't we learn this in school? It would have been a lot more
useful than most of the computer science I *did* get." And a couple of
moments' thought revealed that you couldn't teach it in the traditional
curriculum, because these methods are oriented towards *real* problems,
with large groups of people, not the traditional classroom, where groups
of co-workers are, at most, two or three strong.

So I ask you, shouldn't this be rectified? Here's a class that I've never
heard of, that I would consider mightily useful:

COMP 106
Computing in the Real World

In this 15-person seminar, the entire class will act as a team. We will
undertake a relatively large-scale computing project, to be completed by
the end of the semester. Co-operation will be stressed; the project will
be considerably too large for any subset of the class to finish on its
own. Formal methods of dealing with large software problems will used.
Grades will be based upon ability to work in a large, non-competitive
environment.

Has any such thing been taught at the college level? Seems to me that it
might produce some more *useful* engineers...

(The above is just musing out loud. If you have any concrete comments,
please email them to me, as I'm not sure I'll have time to check back
here in the near future...)

				-- Justin du Coeur
				   Who's been learning this stuff the
				     hard way...

Random Quote du Jour:

"and in the beginning there was nothing
 and then god said "let there be light"
 and there was still nothing.
 but you could see it."
		-- mark pfaff