Re: Software Engineering Education

[milton!mfeldman@beaver.cs.washington.edu (Michael Feldman)]

In article <20600125@inmet> ryer@inmet.camb.inmet.com writes:
>
>  When she was at MIT (early 80's), the grading for all exercises in all
>  computer science and software engineering courses was:
>    
>    25% - Quality (correctness) of the executable program
>    25% - Quality of the written design document
>    25% - Quality of the written test plan and procedures
>    25% - Quality of the user documentation
>
>I thought this was the most intelligent approach I'd ever heard.  Do any
>of you educators have a better idea?  Is this done in other universities?
>
For at least 10 years I have graded most projects using the following:

    40% correctness of executable (measured by input/output behavior)
    30% code quality and style
    30% user documentation

I have included the test plan implicitly in the 40%, because one can't
demonstrate correctness without a decent test plan.

Nearly everyone I know uses some formula roughly like this. Precisely how 
much weight to give to each factor is a matter of taste, but I like the MIT
formula and will consider switching to it. My own formula has not
included an explicit grade for test plan, but that's a good idea.

Editorial comment: The notion that, collectively, we don't teach the
right stuff is a canard, in my experience. Just because the students don't
learn it (or carry it with them to industry) doesn't mean we don't teach
it. We have observed that, in industry, when a project is under the gun,
all the platitudes about good style, test plan, documentation, etc., get
swamped by the demand to get the sucker running. Gerry Weinberg, in his
classic "The Psychology of Computer Programming", pointed this out 20
years ago. Maybe it's not true in your company, of course not...

Mike Feldman

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Michael B. Feldman
Visiting Professor 1991-92               Professor
Dept. of Comp. Sci. and Engrg.           Dept. of Elect. Engrg. and Comp. Sci.
University of Washington FR-35           The George Washington University
Seattle, WA 98105                        Washington, DC 20052

mfeldman@cs.washington.edu               mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu
(206) 632-3794 (voice)                   (202) 994-5253 (voice)
(206) 543-2969 (fax)                     (202) 994-5296 (fax)
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