karam@sce.carleton.ca (Gerald Karam) (11/09/89)
In article <78584@linus.UUCP> mitchell@community-chest.UUCP (George Mitchell) writes: >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. >-- its very simple. the time required to learn 60K lines of code in sufficient detail to be able to modify it would take considerable time. assuming that you believe that this could be *responsibly done* in a week in "the real world" then i guess the situation would involve assigning someone (who has this kind of experience) to the task for a week. (of course this all depends on the application, language used, coding style etc. etc. etc.) students do not have the option of ignoring their classes, other assignments and projects, labs and sanity time to do solve such a problem. i'd love to give a problem like that; and i love to illustrate the difference between dumping 60K lines of code in someones lap VS. 60K lines, plus the original requirements spec (properly done :-) the original design (traceable to the req. :-) and the original test plan and test cases (sure..... :-). there is no substitute for work in an operating environment; an academic setting cannot hope to realistically produce one unless you expect us to take 10 years to educate a CS/CE student. Industry *has* to pick up the ball on this one---- this summer hire a student! generally, just getting students to use *existing* code in a small project or assignment is enough to give them a taste of what its like to use someone elses code, and to perhaps modify it. i have found this to be a very successful exercise (many students complain that they would have preferred to write their own, which is a classic response.) i have given them 2-3k line simulations and 2 weeks to modify it and that has been difficult within their workload. a student's life ain't easy... gerald karam asst. professor karam@sce.carleton.ca karam@sce.uucp