Samuel D. Conte

Curriculum 68: Recommendations for academic programs in computer science: a report of the ACM curriculum committee on computer science

This report contains recommendations on academic programs in computer science which were developed by the ACM Curriculum Committee on Computer Science. A classification of the subject areas contained in computer science is presented and twenty-two courses in these areas are described. Prerequisites, catolog descriptions, detailed outlines, and annotated bibliographies for these courses are included. Specific recommendations which have evolved from the Committees 1965 Preliminary Recommendations are given for undergraduate programs. Graduate programs in computer science are discussed, and some recommendations are presented for the development of masters degree programs. Ways of developing guidelines for doctoral programs are discussed, but no specific recommendations are made. The importance of service courses, minors, and continuing education in computer science is emphasized. Attention is given to the organization, staff requirements, computer resources, and other facilities needed to implement computer science educational programs.

Software Science Revisited: A Critical Analysis of the Theory and Its Empirical Support

The theory of software science was developed by the late M. H. Halstead of Purdue University during the early 1970s. It was first presented in unified form in the monograph Elements of Software Science published by Elsevier North-Holland in 1977. Since it claimed to apply scientific methods to the very complex and important problem of software production, and since experimental evidence supplied by Halstead and others seemed to support the theory, it drew widespread attention from the computer science community.

An undergraduate program in computer science—preliminary recommendations

The Curriculum Committee on Computer Science (C3S) of the Association for Computing Machinery has been considering curriculum problems for approximately three years. During the early part of this period, a number of informal sessions were held with computer people at various national meetings. In the latter part of this three-year period, the Committee has been formally organized and has made a definite effort to arrive at a concrete suggestions for a curriculum.

Software Effort Estimation and Productivity

Publisher Summary This chapter is concerned about effort and cost estimation models which are appropriate for software project development. Project development is meant to include life cycle phases from project design, through system integration, to testing and software delivery. It discusses and evaluates several models for software effort estimation and performance of these models is compared on sets of projects for which some information is available. The models are categorized into (1) historical-experiential models, (2) statistically-based models, (3) theoretically-based models, and (4) composite models. There is some hope that effort and cost models so restricted can be developed which are transportable from one organization to another. The chapter concludes that further experimentation, the gathering of more data, and the combining and enhancing of models will be necessary in order to allow computer scientists to explain and better control the software development process.

Production and employment of Ph.D.'s in computer science—1976

Statistics are presented on the production and employment of Ph.D.s in computer science for the calendar year 1975-76. Data include profiles of graduate students and of faculty at 60 Ph.D.-producing departments as well as a breakdown of degrees granted by specialty areas. Significant trends are noted and comparisons with comparable data gathered for the 1974-75 calendar year are made.

Production and employment of Ph.D.'s in computer science—1977 and 1978

This brief report summarizes the results of the third and fourth annual surveys on the production and employment of Ph.D.s in computer science. Responses were solicited from department chairmen, and aggregated for presentation. Results of the previous surveys were reported in [1] and [2]. Tabular results of the two latest surveys are presented in Tables I-VII. Numbered years in the tables refer to calendar years. Comparisons are made with corresponding data from previous years, and discussion is limited to comments on changes and trends.

The technology of computer center management: a proposed course for graduate professional programs in computer science or in information systems

McFarlan and Nolan have made a strong case for adding a course on information systems administration to the 13 courses proposed by the ACM Curriculum Committee on Computer Education for Management for Graduate Professional Programs in Information Systems. This paper is a report on a course entitled, “The Technology of Computer Center Management,” which has been offered at Purdue for the past four years. The course is suitable either for graduate professional programs in information systems or for graduate professional programs in computer science.

On the effect of different counting rules for control flow operators on Software Science metrics in Fortran

Halstead in his Theory of Software Science, proposed that in the Fortran language, each occurrence of a GOTO i for different label is be counted as a unique operator. Several writers have questioned the wisdom of this method of counting GOTOs. In this paper, we investigate the effect of counting GOTOs as several occurrences of a single unique operator on various software science metrics. Some 412 modules from the International Mathematical and Statistical Libraries (IMSL) are used as the data base for this study.

Address to Guests

First of all I want to express my deep appreciation to all of you former students, faculty, colleagues, and friends for attending this symposium. I want to especially thank those of you who contributed invited papers, particularly David Young, who worked with me at Aberdeen Proving Grounds in 1951 and later at TRW in California; Carl deBoor, whom I recruited as a faculty member in 1966 and who later coauthored with me a best selling textbook in numerical analysis; Peter Denning, who joined the department in 1972 and later became head of the department; and finally I owe a special thanks to John Rice both for his outstanding contributions to the computer science department as a faculty member and department head and for conceiving and organizing this symposium.

Experiments with an automated instructional system for numerical methods

A comer system was developed at Purdue University to teach portions of an undergraduate course in numerical methods. Each instructional unit or lesson is divided into three modes of instruction which allow the student to press from a computer-controlled presentation to a student-controlled investigation. The system is designed as a classroom-independent course of study, and has been used for two semesters by students in lieu of conventional classroom instruction. Initial measures of effectiveness, student acceptance, and operational cost are the result of testing the system independent of instructor intervention. The system is operational on a CDC 6500 with teletype terminals.