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From: reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Suggested Course Layout for Undergraduate CSC program
Message-ID: <1566@pdn.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 16-Oct-87 08:05:18 EDT
Article-I.D.: pdn.1566
Posted: Fri Oct 16 08:05:18 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 22-Oct-87 00:01:46 EDT
References: <2080@super.upenn.edu> <3620001@wdl1.UUCP> <8993@mimsy.UUCP>
Organization: Paradyne Corporation,   Largo FL
Lines: 64
Keywords: software engineering in curriculum
Summary: Informal Methods Help

In article <8993@mimsy.UUCP>, beth@brillig.UUCP writes:
> Lance Murray says:
> > 	It has been my experience, limited that it is, that there is a very
> > important need for Software Engineering courses early in the education of
> > "programmers".

         [Stuff Deleted.....]


> It is my opinion that those topics should be incorporated into the intro
> classes as if they were law.  Abstraction and inductive reasoning are basic
> concepts that transcend software engineering or even computer science.
> 
> A software engineering course in the junior year would consider the practical
> aspects of thinking about programming formally.  Without some programming
> experience, students have difficulty understanding why the software engineering
  ^^^^^^^^^^
> techniques are necessary.  This does not mean that they have been encouraged
> to develop programs haphazardly.  But they haven't needed to design larger
                                                                      ^^^^^^
> systems, document their work at various stages to communicate with others,
  ^^^^^^^                                           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> concern themselves with reliability, provable correctness, or modifiability,
> or show that they can develop a test suite.  Some courses in the first couple
> of years may address these concepts, but the software engineering course
> pulls these and other concepts together in one place at a time when one would
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> hope that the students understand their importance.
> 
> 				Beth Katz
> 				beth@brillig.umd.edu


           I have the same views as Beth concerning when to introduce SE into
the curriculum.  I have taught the into course for a couple of years now and
I am always tempted to give larger assignments and team projects to give the
students a "feel" for programming in the large.  However, after giving the
matter much thought I opted against this because one must learn to crawl 
before one can walk.  The basic foundation must first be put down in order
to build upon it.


            An informal method that can be introduced into a later course
where the student has some basic programming skills is to break the class
up into teams of three or four people, ask them to come up with a system
requirements of their own for a programming project of their choice, then 
collect and redistribute the requirements to other groups for evaluation, 
this group may then come up with a software design based upon the requirements,
and finally the same group who did the design (or a third group!) may take
on the task of implementing the design.  


            This project does not have to be a very formal procedure.  In
fact, the less formal the better.  It will teach the students a valuable
lesson without you even getting up on a soap box to preach about software
engineering.  Let them experience, first hand, how to do it wrong in the
classroom.


-- 
George W. Leach					Paradyne Corporation
{gatech,codas,ucf-cs}!usfvax2!pdn!reggie	Mail stop LF-207
Phone: (813) 530-2376				P.O. Box 2826
						Largo, FL  34649-2826