Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!bionet!ames!hc!lll-winken!uunet!brunix!cs132046
From: cs132046@brunix (Garrett Fitzgerald)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: software engineers
Message-ID: <5558@brunix.UUCP>
Date: 4 May 89 02:12:05 GMT
References: <854@odyssey.ATT.COM>
Sender: news@brunix.UUCP
Reply-To: cs132046@cslab0a.UUCP (Garrett Fitzgerald)
Organization: Brown University Department of Computer Science
Lines: 28

In article <854@odyssey.ATT.COM> gls@odyssey.ATT.COM (g.l.sicherman) writes:
>3. The ability to maintain somebody else's code.  Most C.S. students have
>   no experience in this. 

The second assignment in CS132 this year was to rewrite UNIX's file
command so that it recognized Pascal. (I would advise against trying
to read file.c--it could be hazardous to your health!)

>[The ability to work from specs]

That was another of our assignments--we had to write our own specs for a
"Breakout" program, but then we had to code the specs they gave us.

>6. The ability to write adequate user documentation.  See 4.

Writing the ExDoc was a major part of our final project.

>7. Experience with a variety of languages, environments, and methods.

One of the few failings of the department here. We do almost all of our
programming assignments on Suns, with various different interfaces for
the different courses. CS132 (Intro to S.E.) uses X, CS4 uses an
environment called Passe`, CS12 uses yet another...If we ever have to
deal with MS-DOS and PC-XT's, we could be in trouble...
--------------------------------
Campus Crusade for Cthulhu--when you're tired of the lesser of two evils.
Sarek of Vulcan, a.k.a. Garrett Fitzgerald
cs132046@brunix or st902620@brownvm.bitnet