V
viewpoints
DOI: 10.1145/1538788.1538804
point /Counterpoint
Cs education in the u.s.:
Heading in the wrong direction?
Considering the most effective methods for teaching students
the fundamental principles of software engineering.
Point: Robert Dewar
Last year, edMond Schonberg
and I published an article in
Cross Talk (a U.S. Department
of Defense software engineering journal) titled “Computer
Science Education: Where Are the
Software Engineers of Tomorrow?” in
which we criticized the state of computer science education in U.S. universities. 4 The article caused quite a mini-storm of discussion and was picked up
by Slashdot and also by Datamation in
an article titled “Who Killed the Software Engineer? (Hint: It Happened in
College).” 7
ILLUS TRATION B Y JOhN h ERSE Y
In our CrossTalk article, we expressed the general concern that the
computer science curriculum was
being “dumbed down” at many universities, partly in an effort to bolster
declining enrollments. The enrollment decline at many universities has
been dramatic, and still has not shown
much sign of recovery. The twin effects
of the dot-com crash and the concern
of outsourcing of IT jobs seem to have
convinced many parents and students
that IT is not a field with a future, despite studies that project a shortage
of software engineers in the near future. 6 Perhaps the global economic
meltdown will slow this cycle a bit, but
I tend to agree that we will be facing a
real shortage of well-trained software
engineers in the future.
So obviously the question is what
do I mean by a well-trained software
engineer? To me, the critical need is
the knowledge required to build large
complex reliable systems. It is undeniable that our society depends in a
critical manner on complex software.
This is not only in the familiar areas
of safety-critical software like avionics
systems, but also in everyday financial
systems. For example, consider the report from Moody stating a bug in the
Moody computer system caused an incorrect AAA rating to be assigned to $1
billion worth of “constant proportion
debt obligations.” 5 Now I do not know
exactly what this means but it is surely
one of the variety of peculiar economic
instruments that have been factors in
the current financial crisis: the credit
ratings provided by agencies such as
Moody are a critical element.
I frequently give talks on safety-and security-critical software, and
whenever I give such a talk, I peruse
the news the week before for stories
on computer security failures. Prior
