3 ms·

SE is often relegated to a "fluff" subject in schools simply because it's, well, not very challenging. Classes based around the topic of SE are often topics lik

SE is often relegated to a "fluff" subject in schools simply because it's, well, not very challenging. Classes based around the topic of SE are often topics like "Formal Software Development Methods" where you learn about verification of concurrent programs, formal symbolic testing, contracts, explicit model checking, etc. These are all "soft skills" and hard to directly generalize into a programming assignment, so students often times write essays formalizing their logic. Frankly, I'm surprised that your SE class did compilers at all, many schools in CS have their own "operating systems programming"/"low level programming"/"compiler design" sort of class, where the topic is fully fleshed out, rather than just a tiny project.

sidlls 10y ago
Wow, things have changed since I took my SE electives (17-18 years ago). We had to write code and there were final projects that required the development of a non-trivial application. One that compiled and at least nominally worked. Granted I only took a course of about three electives at the sophomore and junior level, so maybe I missed the "fluff" in other levels.
- whorleater 10y ago
  Yeah the first "formal" sophomore SE elective I took was literally "hey isn't OO the best? Don't you love drawing UML diagrams? What word is P-O-L-Y-M-O-R-P-H-I-S-M, and can you write a 1 page essay on it?" Once you get up to the actual SE electives, they're all about the formalization of software and how it can be represented. These classes are usually avoided by students as well, since students opt for fun (from the student's pov) classes like robotics programming, compiler design, web development, crypto, etc, which only makes the SE classes seem like more "fluff".
tomjen3 10y ago
At my school we wrote a part of a model checker (in C, with pthreads) for concurrency, the rest of the assignments were (as I recall) a mix of questions and math proofs, so you either got it, or got to redo the questions. In general I only recall writing one simple essay and it was, indeed, for our completely fluff project planning class, which was almost entirely about the instructors homegrown, mostly bullshit agile-like system.
morgante 10y ago
I think this must vary a lot between schools. In my school, SE ended up weeding out quite a few people who couldn't actually program. They were fine at math and "theory," but when it came down to actually programming, they produced garbage which only eventually worked through trial and error. For most other classes, grading was based entirely on test cases so they could still pass with their frankenstein programs. SE was the only course which required the development of a large application and where grading was substantially based on actually looking at the code. For the record, there were 0 essays in my SE class and lots of large, in-depth projects.

sidlls 10y ago

Wow, things have changed since I took my SE electives (17-18 years ago). We had to write code and there were final projects that required the development of a non-trivial application. One that compiled and at least nominally worked. Granted I only took a course of about three electives at the sophomore and junior level, so maybe I missed the "fluff" in other levels.

whorleater 10y ago
Yeah the first "formal" sophomore SE elective I took was literally "hey isn't OO the best? Don't you love drawing UML diagrams? What word is P-O-L-Y-M-O-R-P-H-I-S-M, and can you write a 1 page essay on it?" Once you get up to the actual SE electives, they're all about the formalization of software and how it can be represented. These classes are usually avoided by students as well, since students opt for fun (from the student's pov) classes like robotics programming, compiler design, web development, crypto, etc, which only makes the SE classes seem like more "fluff".

tomjen3 10y ago

At my school we wrote a part of a model checker (in C, with pthreads) for concurrency, the rest of the assignments were (as I recall) a mix of questions and math proofs, so you either got it, or got to redo the questions. In general I only recall writing one simple essay and it was, indeed, for our completely fluff project planning class, which was almost entirely about the instructors homegrown, mostly bullshit agile-like system.

morgante 10y ago

I think this must vary a lot between schools. In my school, SE ended up weeding out quite a few people who couldn't actually program. They were fine at math and "theory," but when it came down to actually programming, they produced garbage which only eventually worked through trial and error. For most other classes, grading was based entirely on test cases so they could still pass with their frankenstein programs. SE was the only course which required the development of a large application and where grading was substantially based on actually looking at the code. For the record, there were 0 essays in my SE class and lots of large, in-depth projects.