Slashdot Mirror
Software Dev Cycle As Part of CS Curriculum?
tcolvinMI wonders: "I graduated from a small private college a few years ago with a degree in Computer Science. The main focus of the program, at this particular college, was to give you the tools necessary to be able to learn any programming language based on conceptual information, while having been introduced to several popular languages such as VB, C, C++, and Java. However, there was no 'final project' course that introduced a student programmer to the process of software development as a whole. Today, I was talking with a professor and pitched the idea of introducing such a course that would allow students to essentially go through the entire process from design to deployment. Is there any need for such a course? If so, what lessons would you place an emphasis on? So far, my idea is to allow a student to design an application that can be completed within the alloted time frame, develop in an approved language (one they've had and one the professor also knows), go through the QA process and then finally deploy the app to be evaluated by the other students in the class, who have not participated in the project." If you went CS, how well did your lessons prepare you for real project work? If you had a chance to prepare other college students for a career in development, what things would you teach them, and why?
You need to be able to work on a team, and you need to be able to deal with a large group. A large group coding requires CVS or something similar. This should be included in the curriculum.
Care about privacy? Read this!
It was a class at both Universities I attended...
What has been missing in all the classes I ever attended (which has been a while) was source management. I think subversion should be explained in the first class and used throughout the whole degree. Many can code; I want to hire someone who knows how to manage it.
Learning about the software development cycle is something to do in a software engineering course, not a computer science course. Of course these days, with universities and colleges become increasingly career and job training focussed, the differences between computer science and software engineering are blurred. Perhaps the better way to view things is to consider an analogy to other fields where the difference is mmore traditionally clear. Consider someone doing a physics and mathematics degree - they will learn about a great many things such as differential equations and their applications to physical systems. What they are studying, however, is the theoretical underpinnings of such material. Contrast that with a civil engineer who also learn about differential equations and their applications to physical systems. The engineer, however, will be learning how to make use of these as tools. A course in the development cycle of how to build a bridge - design, specification, testing and verification, and construction and maintenance - that's something that is integral to the course of the civil engineer, but something the physics student is likely to encounter since the physics student is not as interested in engineering applications so much as the theory itself. Similarly the software development cycle is something for the field of software engineering.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
You forgot a big one... a semester or two in database theory and design. Since most programming projects in the real world end up interacting with data in some way, this could be good. I can't count the number of times where I caught a programmer treating an RDBS like a flat file because they had no idea what a database was for or how they work.
In one camp, you have the guys that see Computer Science as a branch of Mathematics, and find it unfortunate that "Computer" appears in the name. For them Computational Science would be a much better name. Asking whether the software development cycle should be taught as part of a Computer Science curriculum seems just as ridiculous to them as asking whether it should be taught as part of the Mathematics curriculum.
In the other camp, you have the people who are more specifically interested in computers and software development. They see programming as an essential, but far from singular tool in their box, and generally only care about as much computational theory as what is pragmatic. These are the guys that get much more excited about new methodologies than they do about proofs that a language is Turing complete. This group would feel robbed of an essential part of their education were they not taught anything about the software development cycle.
Currently the "real world" has a lot more demand for the second group than the first, but that doesn't make either view more valid than the other. I think the proper thing to do is for colleges to split their Computer Science departments into two entities that give separate degrees. The first, being more properly a science, would retain the name Computer Science, while the other, being more of an Engineering discipline, would be given the name Software Engineering. Then students can choose for themselves which group they belong to. If I'm not mistaken a number of colleges already do that.
There would, of course, be some overlap, but it seems roughly equivalent to the split between Physics and Electrical Engineering, which seems to work out fine at most colleges.
>A student needs at least 4 semesters with C++. C++ is the mother language and if you learn it you can program in about any other
>language for the rest of your life.
I've seen experts in C++ break down totally when they encounter Prolog and LISP. I've seen people who are steeped in a C++ background who's code in Java looks like something out of a programmer's worst nightmare.
There are also a lot of habits that one develops in C++ that not only do not apply in other languages, or which can be downright counterproductive. I agree everyone should know the language and that it has a lot to offer, saying that C++ is "the mother language" is a bit nonsensical.
As to the class list...
"To learn what?" is my question. Why take 2 semesters of networking, and 2 semesters of operating systems? What are you hoping that the individual will learn in these semesters? (the weights that you provide are also not in sync with the documented you cited). Is this more important than distributed computing, algorithm analysis, mathematics passed calculus (the more mathematics the better, my job involves statistics, noneuclidean geometry, differential equations, trig, etc on a daily basis), non-shell scripting languages (Python, Ruby), numerical analysis and scientific computing, technical writing, HCI, general engineering principles (or engineering specializations), databases, computer architecture, etc?
In my mind, specifying the number of "semesters" of each is not a wortwhile exercise. More important are "what concepts do they need to know." Tables 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3 in the document you linked to are an excellent way of breaking this down, IMHO, and much more effective than a nebulous decree that only species the course titles.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
Hehehe ... when you're a student, this "working with a bunch of morons" statement feels like the truth even if you're teamed up with brain trusters at a top CS school.
In college, the smart people are building their own businesses and doing other things on the side, and don't really want to deal with team projects that take insane amounts of time. The regular folks just want to party and get by with the least amount of work until they can get a real-world job. The true "morons" are the ones who love group projects, because they can do very little work and leach off the rest of the group. So a team-based software development project ends up catering to the folks who don't deserve it.
When you graduate, a CS major is typically hired to program. After a few years they can move into different positions, but why dilute their programming experience with skills that they'll learn better on the job?
My suggestion is that if you want business skills, take a few business classes. If you want project management classes, take a class or two dedicated to PM. Otherwise, code away.
Crack - Free with every butt and set of boobs
Agreed. I was lucky enough to catch some of the best professors at SU before they left. I feel sorry for the people coming in behind me, because they are getting a significantly lesser quality education.
Sadly, the CS department is feeling a lot of pressure from the "industry" to make these changes. I'm sure many of the comments here will reflect that. Well, some people actually want to get a CS degree so they can become computer scientists, not code monkeys.
Basically, I completely agree with the parent post and confirm its validity.
Everything I need to know about copyrights I learned from Slashdot.