[clug] Question: FOSS and Teaching Software Engineering

[Duncan Roe]

Like all branches of engineering, software engineering can be viewed as "doing
for 50c what any fool could do for $1". It's so much more than programming
thefore: questions arise like "What is the most economic way to achieve the
customer's requirements?".

Looking towards total system lifetime costs, you need to take into account
issues such as "What will be the skill level and experience of the employees
implementing a requested customer alteration in say 3 years' time?" (you won't
be one of them).

That's a new lesson I only just learnt, after 37 years in the industry. Could /
should it have been taught in a Software Engineering unit? Maybe, but then I
only did a CS stream as part of a Physics degree.

Cheers ... Duncan.

On Sun, Jun 29, 2008 at 02:53:04PM +1000, steve jenkin wrote:
> Here's something I Just Don't Get, and wanted to hear Comments or Good
> News from this community...
>
> 'Software Engineering' is different from Computer Science because, in
> part, it is about "Programming In The Large".
>
> Beautiful New Algorithms and insightful new approaches are CS.
> The problem of producing Big Software is pure SE.
>
> Has anyone seen/heard of an SE course that comprises a chunk of real
> work on some large (>>100KLOC) bit of code?
> [Versus the usual 'final year group project' of knocking up something
> from scratch. At best 1-5KLOC]
> i.e some actual P-i-t-L experience.
>
> There are any number of *definitive* FOSS projects out there that are
> open-ended and ideal candidates for this.
> Off the top of my head:
> - gcc and other compilers [e.g. port to a new platform or O/S]
> - linux, *BSD kernels
> - PERL, TCL, Python, Ruby, PHP, SWIG - modules/objects, porting,
> features, ...
> - Apache
> - SAMBA
> - Mozilla, Thunderbird, ...
> - WINE
> - OOo
>
> I won't accept as an answer that "IP and copyright issues" prevent this.
> In contributing to something like the Linux source tree, you get to
> copyright your code, just on in a *commercial* product.
>
> This leads to another puzzlement of mine:
>     If Programming is, like {Music, Art, Surgery, Flying}, a
> "performance discipline", why don't students and practitioners required
> to develop & present a "portfolio"???
>
> Open/Transparent source code, as in FOSS, makes this possible - at least
> for students.
> What could be more advantageous to recent graduates than a strong
> portfolio to present to employers??
>
>
> I've puzzled over non-teaching of P-i-t-L- for years - I got to learn
> about O/S's at Uni by reading *the source*, and wondered why it isn't
> now the norm, but even worse - why academe seems to have regressed and
> moved away from it.
>
> In computing, Prof. Andrew Tanenbaum invented 'Minix' for exactly this
> reason...
> Since the BSD source agreement and the free 'Ancient Unix' licence,
> plus the 1996 re-publication of the "Lions Commentary", there is no lack
> of teaching materials.
>
> This approach is pedagogically definitive:
>
>  - you can't do better learning about something than by working on 'the
> real deal'
>    [Could you imagine teaching surgery, dentistry or flying aircraft
> otherwise?]
>
>  - if students can't cope with the complexity/difficulty of the real
> thing, they need to find another field of interest, not have the work
> 'made easy' for them.
>
>
>
>
>
> I was reminded of this question by watching the TED video of Yochai
> Benkler on "Open-source economics" and on Friday I heard this interview
> with Paul Zak (originator of neuro-economics), editor of " Moral
> Markets: The Critical Role of Values in the Economy".
> <http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/stories/2008/2282697.htm>
>
> [It runs from around 1:15 to 16:30.]
>
> He makes the point that 'efficient markets' rely on people being
> "Trustworthy, Fair and Honest".
> I.e. our society and Common-Wealth are built precisely on our mostly
> trusting one another and behaving reasonably towards each another...
>
> He also talks about the role of the neuro-transmitter, oxytocin, and
> links their laboratory studies to:
>   "Virtue is its own Reward".
>
> Which is not dissimilar to the FOSS ethic of "Social Good".
>
> Why give work and Intellectual Property away?
>     Because it makes you Feel Good!
>     [and we now have the neurochemistry to show why :-)]
>
> --
> Steve Jenkin, Info Tech, Systems and Design Specialist.
> 0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915)
> PO Box 48, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA
>
> sjenkin at canb.auug.org.au http://members.tip.net.au/~sjenkin
>
> --
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