Martin Osborne

An only undergraduate course in object-oriented technology

The purported advantages of an object-oriented approach to software development are widely documented. From an educational standpoint, one of the most usefid benefits is that the model of cooperating objects is intuitively close to human experience and expectation. Object-Oriented Technology (OOT) also offers a fresh perspective on the long-sought grail of software reuse, and it encourages a development trajectory in which upper level abstractions must be properly addressed before detailed implementation is broached. Of course, some experience with the method places these promises into a realistic context, and reveals that there is still no mechanical path to good software design. Many decisions remain informed judgments based primarily on previous contact with similar situations. Nevertheless, in the judgement of the authors, 00T provides a superior organizational framework for managing the complexity of the software development process.

Computing Curricula 1991 and the Case for Object‐Oriented Methodology

Because it is widely distributed and respected, Computing Curricula 1991 is an excellent point of reference for determining the importance of any topic in the undergraduate computer science curriculum. Therefore, in attempting to make a case for object‐oriented methodology (OOM), it is worth considering the role assigned to OOM by Curricula 1991. Although Curricula 1991 makes few direct references to OOM, it does emphasize software development in general. By showing that OOM is important in software development, we make a case for devoting a substantial amount of time to OOM in the computer science curriculum.

APPGEN: a tool for teaching systems analysis and design

APPGEN is a program which generates information systems. It is easy to use and powerful and runs on a VAX under VMS. It has been used with success in senior level courses on systems analysis and design. Using APPGEN, students are able to analyze and design systems of realistic size and still have time to implement them. Implementations give students important feedback about their designs and give additional focus to a class on systems analysis and design. Students get satisfaction from actually creating a working system.

Software engineering, C++, and Windows

lNTRODUCTfON Our department of computer science has been wrestling with a difficult problem-how to graduate students who are ready to develop software in todays complex and sophisticated programming environments. The department has always prided itself on covering the fundamentals of computer science while preparing students who shine in their fwst programming job. However, in recent years our curriculum did not keep pace with changes in computing-changes from time-shared centralized systems to distributed desktop computers and from character based to graphical user interfaces. The chief factors contributing to this problem were a lack of up-to-date hardware, wide differences in philosophy within the department, lack of interest in teaching certain courses, and an already crowded curriculum. After our most recent accreditation review, we could no longer ignore our shortcomings. While praising the qualifications of our faculty and the fundamental strength of our curriculum, the review lamented the antiquated state of our hardware. For the most part faculty offices and student labs were equipped with dumb terminals and IBM XTs, and the manner in which we imparted the skills of software development reflected this fact. The industry member of the review committee told us informally that he would be reluctant to hire any of our graduates. They lacked software development expertise that he deemed essential. Clearly, we had been neglecting our responsibility to the students. Since then the university has upgraded our hardware. We now have the facilities to teach prevailing software development methods and have reaffirmed our commitment to doing so. With this in mind we have made several minor changes to our curriculum. For instance, students now use X-Windows in a graphics class and Microsoft Access as a prototyping tool in an information systems class. We have also made a major change. We have added a year long sequence on software engineering for juniors and seniors. This paper describes the sequence. Hopefully, others will Permission to co y wfthout fee all or part of this material is t! granted provided t at the copies are not made or distributed for direct commercial advantage, the ACM copyright notice and the title of the publication and Its date appear, and notice is given that copying is by permission of the Association of Computing Machtnery. To copy otherwise, or to republish, requires a fQe andors ecific permission. benefit from our experience. (For a discussion of the overall place and importance of software engineering in …

OZ: a syntax generating editor

In response to the needs of students taking introductory programming classes, we have a created a syntax generating editor. This simple to use and reasonably powerful editor helps students avoid syntax errors and also greatly eases and speeds the typing of programs. This is especially true in Modula-2 where the frequent need to change between upper and lower case places exhausting demands on even good typists. Changes in a configuration file allow the editor to work with a number of different programming languages. The editor is written in Pascal and runs under VAX/VMS. Source code, executable code, and documentation are available over the Internet.

Using two-class classifiers for function estimation

Abstract A technique for using several two-class classifiers simultaneously to perform function estimation is described. The two-class classifiers are trained on points belonging to the function being estimated; no information about the form of the function is needed; the function can have any number of independent variables; and the accuracy of the estimate increases with the number of two-class classifiers used. Computer tests on artificially generated data and on real-life data give satisfactory results.