Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!lll-winken!uunet!tektronix!psueea!jove.cs.pdx.edu!warren
From: warren@jove.cs.pdx.edu (Warren Harrison)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: software engineers
Message-ID: <1146@psueea.UUCP>
Date: 6 May 89 01:33:55 GMT
Sender: news@psueea.UUCP
Reply-To: warren@jove.cs.pdx.edu (Warren Harrison)
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, Portland State University; Portland OR
Lines: 24

Sure software engineers spend a great deal of their time debugging,
coding, designing, etc.  I think many of us are missing one VERY
important activity (that software engineers COULD be prepared for
in school) --- communicating.  I find that many of my students (and
many new programmers/software engineers I have worked with) have a
very difficult time of communicating with others, both orally and
in writing.  In most of the projects I have been involved in, this
skill was almost as important as programming since you always end up
describing the system or the code or whatever to others.
I don't necessarily mean you have to be able to write the great
American novel, but when you get up in front of the other 20
people on the project and try and explain your part of the system
(or worse yet, the system as a whole) and can't (or worse yet
describe the *wrong* interface) you're in trouble.

Most posters seem to do a pretty good job of it.  Maybe if I require
my students to post 3 messages to the net each term they'll improve???

Warren

Warren Harrison                CSNET: warren@pdx.edu
Department of Computer Science UUCP:  {ucbvax,decvax}!tektronix!psu-cs!warren
Portland State University      Internet: warren%pdx.edu@relay.cs.net
Portland, OR 97207-0751