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Date: 6 Jul 91 21:20:28 GMT
From: seas.gwu.edu!mfeldman@uunet.uu.net  (Michael Feldman)
Subject: Re: Is CM important? (was: Use pragma INLINE or not?)
Message-ID: <3449@sparko.gwu.edu>
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

In article <46820007@hpcupt3.cup.hp.com> edge@hpcupt3.cup.hp.com (Kathy Edge) w
rites:
>
>My suggestion would be to follow basic SE principles in teaching
>the other subjects.
>
I quite agree. In fact, my colleagues and I have been saying for years,
"software engineering is what we all do and teach, in all courses."

Trouble is, I keep hearing from industry folks that they don't see courses
titled SOFTWARE ENGINEERING on the transcripts of their interviewees. I
sometimes think they're just looking for an easy way to sift applicants.

Back in the old days, when "structured programming" was new, we made a big
deal out of it. Hardly anyone uses that term these days, because what we
used to call SP is now so much a part of our daily programming that it's
no longer a separate agenda item. In my opinion, this is what needs to
happen with SE. Indeed, it IS happening. If you look at the more recent
1st-level books - in whatever language - they are all doing pretty decent
SE, albeit on a very simple level for beginners, and not usually 
involving teams. But the term SOFTWARE ENGINEERING is hard to find in these
books. Instead of making a big deal out of it, they're pretending that
there is no other way to do it. This is exactly right!

There are really 2 kinds of SE - I'm indebted to Chuck Engle for teaching
me the terms "micro-SE" and "macro-SE." The micro kind is the stuff at the
program level, including modules (or whatever your favorite language calls
them), interface/implementation issues, etc. The macro kind is all the
system-development superstructure: documents, testing strategies, etc.

Surely micro-SE is being taught these days as an inherent part of any
reasonable CS course, yes even compilers (certainly I teach it there).
The macro kind ought to be also infused into everything. I observe
that indeed much prohress is being made here, to judge from what's
reported at SIGCSE conferences, etc. Maybe this'll give my industry 
friends reason for hope after all.

Mike