🚀 go-pugleaf

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From: mitchell@community-chest.uucp (George Mitchell)
Newsgroups: comp.sw.components,comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Maintenance
Message-ID: <78584@linus.UUCP>
Date: 7 Nov 89 20:02:20 GMT
References: <1337@accuvax.nwu.edu> <11064@cbnews.ATT.COM>
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Reply-To: mitchell@community-chest.UUCP (George Mitchell)
Organization: MITRE-McLean Software Engineering Laboratory
Lines: 12

In article <11064@cbnews.ATT.COM> kww@cbnews.ATT.COM
(Kevin W. Wall,55212,cb,1B329,6148604775) writes:       `Just once I'd
`like to see a homework assignment in some CS course be something like
`
`	"add features X and Y to this 60,000 software system (which the
`	students have never seen before) and turn it in next week".

Would someone (or more) please address why this is not done.
--
/s/ George   vmail: 703/883-6029
email:  mitchell@community-chest.mitre.org    [alt: gmitchel@mitre.arpa]
snail:  GB Mitchell, MITRE, MS Z676, 7525 Colshire Dr, McLean, VA  22102

About a year ago, I read a paper in a periodical about a university
prof who did a teaching experiment on this. Unfortunately, I can't
find, nor recall, the periodical!

The work involved modifying a mail system. The gist of the article
was that the technique worked, but it is very difficult to
establish a suitable problem environment which fits the structure
and timing available in a university semester.

As for when this kind of teaching will be widespread, please
remember that *any* organization larger than, oh say, 10 people
is incapable of reacting very quickly to changes. The larger
the organization, the slower the reaction. A single university
is pretty large. The entire education system is very large.

It will come. In the meantime, there are education programs like
the one pioneered by the University of Waterloo, called co-operative
education. The premise is that students attend one semester of
classes, then work for one semester for a company whose business
is related to the student's field of study, and repeat for a total
span of 5 years instead of 4 to cover a 4 year degree program.

The result? Graduates who don't suffer from "ivory-tower-itis",
who have almost 2 years relevant work experience in their chosen
profession, and who are not in debt to their eyeballs, and whose
parents can afford to send their second born to university, too.

These co-op programs are becoming very widespread. Waterloo was
founded as an engineering school in 1957 and started co-op
studies immediately upon founding. Now it is regarded as one of
the foremost schools for computer science in North America.

I guess it is also fair to say that detractors claim the co-op
program breeds yuppies, that the students have no sense of fun,
and on and on. Needless to say, I disagree completely.


Richard Sargent                   Internet: richard@pantor.UUCP
Systems Analyst                   UUCP:     uunet!pantor!richard