Re: Software Engineering Education

[aio!sweetpea.jsc.nasa.gov!yow@eos.arc.nasa.gov (Bill Yow)]

In article <SRCTRAN.91Nov16120253@world.std.com>, srctran@world.std.com (Gregor
y Aharonian) writes:
|> 
|>      The various suggestions for how to grade software products, while nice,
|> don't reflect that in the real world of deadlines and tight budgets, one
|> rarely has the luxury (or the ability to plead for cost over-runs) to do
|> software nicely in the software engineering sense.

Of course this is great as long as you never have to maintain the code.


|>      Languages like C/++ are frequently chosen in the real world for product
s
|> because it is easier to write 'bad' programs in the required time with C tha
n
|> it is to a write the same program 'badly' in Ada.  

Or could the developers just be lazy?  Maybe the next time a bridge is build ne
ar
your home the Civil Engineers will decide it is easer (cheaper) not to do any
load analyze and just build the bridge.  Of course, when the bridge collapses
(just an annoying bug) nobody will complain, right? 

|> There is a program I now
|> use on my PC, GeoWorks, that is a simple, decently implemented of what
|> Windows should be.  The program has received much praise.  From what I know,
|> the program is written mostly in assembler, with some C.  I doubt highly,
|> given the time, budget, and memory constraints, that this program could have
|> been written in Ada, and if the source code was evaluated by the proposed
|> academic criteria, probably would not receive a good grade. Yet the product,
|> albeit with annoying bugs, is a good product.

You don't say what version (1.2 is the latest) but there are still bugs that ha
ve
not been fixed from version 1.0.  Maybe the use of assembler is the problem? 

GeoWorks is mostly written in assembler, but they have been working on versions
of GeoWorks for about 8 years.  The C-64 was the first system to use GeoWorks i
n
83 or 84.

Also they still don't have a SDK, unless you want to buy thier entire Sun
development system.


|>      The question should be how much of the real world show students be
|> taught about?  It is beneficial to teach them to program in a way that is
|> possible only at the few companies in the real world lucky or smart enough
|> to have great software development environments?

No, they should be taught how to do software right and I don't claim that I kno
w
how to do software right or that Ada is the right way.  But it is better than
using assembler or C. (IMHO)

For some reason liability laywers have let software companies get away with
murder.  (If the software dies its your fault not ours).  At some point the
laywers are going to start suing software compaines for liability of their
software the same way that Doctors, manufacturers and other groups are held
liable for their products.  

|> 
|> Greg Aharonian
|> Source Translation & Optimization

						Later,
						Bill Yow
						(713) 283-4051
						yow@sweetpea.jsc.nasa.gov
						byow@mcimail.com

My opinions are my own!