Forum for Academic Software Engineering Volume 5, Number 04, Fri Feb 3 13:46:21 CST 1995 Topics: Fase Mailing List Student Project Suggestions, Anyone? Tutorial: Process Centered Software Engineering Environments Workshop: Courseware Development for Engineering Education Faculty Position Book: The Schematics of Computation Career Magazine Symposium on Software Reuse - SSR'95 CFP: Doctoral Consortium CRA Board Member Nominations CFP: Information System Education Conference A------------------------------------------------------- From: kpierce@d.umn.edu (Keith Pierce) Subject: FASE Mailing List I received several responses to my request for opinions on alternative forums for communicating with software engineering educators. Some would like to start amore interactive listserver with which subscribers could email all other subscribers without an editor's or moderator's intervention. Others prefer a UseNet newsgroup to keep their incoming mailbox from overflowing. And still others like FASE as it is. I will be happy to hear other opinions, and, of course, offers to help set up such beasts. From: Linda Ibrahim I really enjoy an interactive forum for software engineering issues. I hope that you can manage to offer both the regular newsletter and an interactive email mechanism. From: Nancy Mead Another option that I would prefer is a newsgroup. That allows you to read the messages at your leisure, rather than being inundated with EMail. I think the original FASE digest should definitely be retained. From: Ted Baker Why not protect the FASE mailing list, so only the moderator/editor can mail to it? A------------------------------------------------------- From: Lorraine Johnston Subject: Student Project Suggestions, Anyone? Key ideas - maintenance project, UNIX, large body of code ("real" and in use somewhere) I am looking for a suitable project for the practical component of the first of our specialised SE subjects. The students are at least third year undergraduates in an SE or CS degree course, and should all be competent programmers. They will work in groups of three. A maintenance project seems the most reasonable, as these students have substantial projects elsewhere. The aim of this project is to give students the opportunity to experience what they are hearing in lectures. Hence, I would prefer that they need to write documents (requirements, design, test), refer to specifications (preferably), and also implement something. As well, I expect them to ftp the existing code from some site, then handle the installation of it. Example: For the past two years we have used the Columbia Appletalk Package (CAP) software, which allows a UNIX box to be used as a server for a Macintosh network. From memory, I think it was about 4 Mbytes of source code - certainly enough for them NOT to be able to read and understand it all! In 1993, students were asked to check for compliance with the specification AFPVersion2.0, to report on the feasibility of implementing some of the features of AFPVersion2.1, and then to design, implement and test an extension to the software. The extra functionality was to allow a Macintosh user to set or change the password which allows them access to the UNIX server, and to allow the password to be sent in an encrypted form to the UNIX server for validation (currently passwords are sent in clear text). In 1994, we again required some compliance checking, but the enhancement was the implementation of fixed directory ID facilities, and the implemention of three file ID functions specified in AFPVersion 2.1 For 1995, I have decided to move away from the CAP software - not that it didn't meet my requirements (it did!), but there are other reasons, such as equipment availability. For testing, students need access to more Macs than we currently have in the local labs. An entirely UNIX-based project would make life much easier. First semester starts in four weeks here 'down-under', so I need to prepare a suitable project by then. I would appreciate any ideas you can send me by mid-February. I'm quite happy to summarise the responses if there is interest. A------------------------------------------------------- From: lwerth@cs.utexas.edu (Laurie Werth) Subject: Tutorial: Process Centered Software Engineering Environments Tutorial: Process Centered Software Engineering Environments 17th International Conference on Software Engineering, Seattle, WA April 24, 1995 This tutorial presents the state of the art and practice in the area of Process-Centered Software Engineering Environments (PSEEs). PSEEs are Software Engineering Environments in which the organization's development processes are defined explicitly by the user and are modeled in the environment. PSEEs can monitor or enforce the process, automate routine parts of it, and produce accurate information on the status of the process. The tutorial presents a comprehensive picture of this emerging area, the key concepts, formalisms, architectures, and representative systems. Tutors: Pankaj Garg (Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Palo Alto, CA) and Mehdi Jazayeri (Technical University of Vienna, Austria) For additional information, contact: garg@hpl.hp.com or jazayeri@infosys.tuwien.ac.at A------------------------------------------------------- From: "Michelle M. Crames" Subject: Workshop: Courseware Development for Engineering Education COURSEWARE DEVELOPMENT FOR ENGINEERING EDUCATION WORKSHOPS Spend two weeks this summer at Cornell University learning to use multimedia in your teaching. Electronically mediated instruction provides the opportunity to use pictures, simulations, animations, video, text and sound. The course is divided into a week of basic skills, and a week of developing your own application. Our classroom is Macintosh-equipped, so the course is taught on these, and projects are done on them. But we try to keep everything applicable to either Mac or PC by keeping things general, or using applications that have PC equivalents. The workshop is repeated twice during the summer: June 11-23, and July 16-28. There is no charge for the workshop itself, but there is an administrative fee paid to Cornell of $6.50/day. Residence hall rooms are available for $35.25/person (single occupancy), $28.25/person (double occupancy), and are optional. A stipend of $400 is available for any student attending the workshop with a faculty member. There are 10 computers, so enrollment is limited to 10 faculty members (and 10 accompanying students). Admission is based upon a short proposal, due by April 1, 1995, to the Engineering Multimedia Research Laboratory. They can be mailed to Engineering Multimedia Research Laboratory, 655 Engineering and Theory Center, Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853, or Emailed to: workshop@emrl.cornell.edu Please include: *your name, address, phone number and email *your workshop preference. If you don't have a preference, please indicate this. *your field of engineering *A short description of the project you would like to accomplish. Feel free to contact the Engineering Multimedia Research Laboratory if you are unsure about the suitability of your proposed topic. *A list of the source materials you would bring with you to the workshop. These could include notes, photographs, slides, videotape, audiotape, computer programs, etc. Be aware that copyright law will most likely apply if you plan on copying material. *if you will be attending with a student Proposals will be reviewed for: *practicality of project * should be able to complete project during the workshop * participant should be able to bring the necessary content material to the workshop *subject of proposed work * must be in the engineering disciplines * priority will be given to topics useful in more than one discipline *ability of faculty member to attend with a student The Courseware Design for Engineering Education workshops encourage faculty and student participation. If you are interested in seeing what was done last year, visit our WWW site at: www.emrl.cornell.edu/EMRLLab It has projects and information about this year's and last year's courses. If you have any questions, please contact us. Engineering Multimedia Research Laboratory, 655 Engineering & Theory Center, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, (607) 254-8811 or by e-mail: workshop@emrl.cornell.edu A------------------------------------------------------- From: Fikret Ercal Subject: Faculty Position THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-ROLLA DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE The Department of Computer Science invites applications for a tenure-track position at the level of assistant professor to begin in the Fall Semester of 1995. Qualifications for the position include a Ph.D. in computer science and strong commitments to teaching and to research in the area of software engineering. The Department grants the B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees. The Ph.D. program has been active since 1977 and the Department currently has close to 100 graduate students. Departmental research is growing with current funding above half a million dollars from NSF, DoD, and industry sources. Major computing facilities include an Intel iPSC/860 32 processor multicomputer as well as SUN, SGI, and NeXT workstations for faculty and student use. Disciplinary and interdisciplinary research within the sciences and engineering is active in parallel and distributed computing, scientific computing, formal methods, and artificial intelligence. UMR Intelligent Systems Center also provides interdisciplinary research opportunities and faculty members in the department may become research investigators in this center. The University of Missouri-Rolla is the primary science and engineering campus of the University of Missouri system; it currently has an enrollment of 5000+ students. Rolla is situated in the non-urban environment of the Ozarks equidistant from St. Louis, Columbia, and Springfield. Salary is competitive with Big-10/Big-8 universities. The committee will begin reviewing applications on March 1, 1995. Applications are accepted until the position is filled. Applicants should send a vita and a statement of research and teaching interests, and arrange to have three letters of reference sent to: Dr. Fikret Ercal, Faculty Search Committee Department of Computer Science University of Missouri-Rolla Rolla, MO 65401 Phone: (314)-341-4492 E-mail: csdept@cs.umr.edu For additional information about the department, you may access the department's home page via Mosaic at http://www.cs.umr.edu. UM-Rolla is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer and especially encourages applications from both minorities and women. A------------------------------------------------------- From: manis@cs.ubc.ca (Vincent Manis) Subject: Book: The Schematics of Computation Announcing the publication of a new introductory Scheme-based computer science text: The Schematics of Computation Vincent Manis Langara College James Little University of British Columbia Prentice-Hall, Inc. (An Alan R. Apt Book) ISBN: 0-13-834284-9 (North America) 0-13-433772-7 (International) This text provides a rich, broad view of computer science, including not just programming, but also a grand tour of many areas, including programming languages and systems, databases, AI, logic programming, and computer hardware. The book balances theory and practice, motivating theoretical concepts by their practical applications. A number of ``working models'' of real systems are presented and studied, including language evaluators, a relational database system, an inference engine, and a graphics package. A major emphasis is the development of a unified model of computation that explains how and why programs in Scheme (and other languages) behave as they do. The book has hundreds of exercises, all with answers, throughout the text. At the end of each chapter, there are problem sets and a self-assessment, with answers provided separately. A large number of sidebars present topics that are related to the main text, including relevant applications, software tools, theoretical topics, and social issues. `The Schematics of Computation' is based upon materials that have been used at the University of British Columbia and several other places for the past five years. It has been used for a two-semester introductory sequence for students with no computing background, as well as a one-semester course for students with prior programming experience. Table of Contents ----- -- -------- 1. Setting the Stage: The basics of computation; algorithms; functions in mathematics; procedures in Scheme; definitions; Boolean values and conditionals; substitution as the basis for evaluation. Case Study: Clock calculations 2. Recursion: loops; time and space complexity; debugging and testing programs. Case Study: A predator/prey model in population dynamics 3. Building Programs: text processing; computation for effect and value; procedural arguments and mapping; organizing programs: lexical scope, modules, introduction to data abstraction. Case Study: Scientific visualization 4. Structures and Collections: pairs and symbols for implementing abstract types; symbols and quoting; lists for representing collections of data; mapping, filtering, and reduction. Case Study: An airline route-planning program 5. Mutation and State: the concept of state; mutable data structures; mutable variables; the environment model of computation. Case Study: An airline passenger reservation system 6. Object-Oriented Programming: objects and classes; an object-oriented extension to Scheme; implementing classes with procedures; object-oriented design. Case Study: A personal scheduling program 7. Evaluators and Languages: definition of programming languages; trees; interpreters and compilers; macros for extending Scheme; a recursive Scheme evaluator. Case Study: Implementing a BASIC-like language 8. Databases: the relational model; a database language for Scheme; implementing the relational operators; database design. Case Study: Client/server computing 9. Data Structures and Algorithms: complexity revisited; searching; sorting; stacks and queues; a (PostScript-like) graphics language. Case Study: Simulating a ticket office 10. Facts and Rules: patterns and rules; an Eliza-like driving consultant; logic programming; logic languages and inference engines. Case Study: Combining databases with logic 11. Gleam, the Ghost in the Machine: data representation; introduction to the Gleam computer, a simplified RISC machine; assembly language; a Gleam simulator; graphics hardware. Case Study: Analyzing scientific data 12. Virtual Machines: extending Gleam to support Scheme operations; a Scheme evaluator in Gleam; operating systems. Supplementary materials (currently in preparation) Lab Manual (approximately 30 labs and related materials) Schemer's Guide to C++ Transparency Masters Instructor's Guide -- \ Vincent Manis "There is no law that vulgarity and \ Computer Science, Langara College literary excellence cannot coexist." /\ 100 W. 49th Ave, Vancouver, BC, Canada (604) 324-5205 -- A. Trevor Hodge / \ Co-author of ``The Schematics of Computation'', Prentice-Hall, 1994 A------------------------------------------------------- From: ncs@jobline.com (NCS Jobline) Subject: Career Magazine An excellent source for job listings, career advice, articles and services is the Career Magazine at http://www.careermag.com/careermag/ Searchable database of over 6000 to 8000 job openings. New listings added daily. No cost to candidates for information or jobs. A------------------------------------------------------- From: zand@unocss.unomaha.edu (Mansour Zand) Subject: Symposium on Software Reuse - SSR'95 ACM-SIGSOFT Symposium on Software Reusability (SSR'95) April 28-30, 1995 Co-Located with 17th Int. Conf. on Software Engineering, ICSE-17 April 23-30, 1995 Westin Hotel, Seattle, Washington, USA SSR'95 is the bi-yearly Symposium on Software Reusability that is conducted in conjunction with the International Conference on Software Engineering. The objective of this symposium is to provide a forum for academics and practitioners in the areas related to software reusability to exchange research results, development activities, and application experience reports. GENERAL CHAIR PROGRAM CHAIR Mansour Zand Mansur Samadzadeh University of Nebraska-Omaha Oklahoma State University zand@unocss.unomaha.edu samad@a.cs.okstate.edu NOTE: More information about the program will appear in the ICSE-17 WWW pages and FTP site. For further information, contact Mansur Samadzadeh (phone +1 405.744.5674, email samad@a.cs.okstate.edu). Up to date information about ICSE-17 and the co-located events can be obtained via the World Wide Web at URL http://www.cs.washington.edu/research/se/icse17/, via anonymous FTP at host ftp.cs.washington.edu in directory pub/se/icse17, or from Dewayne Perry (phone +1 908.582.2529, email dep@research.att.com). [ED: To shorten this newsletter, the complete program has been excised. If you would like to receive the complete post, send me email.] A------------------------------------------------------- From: Said ASSAR Subject: CFP: Doctoral Consortium 2nd Doctoral Consortium on Advanced Information Systems Engineering 12-13 June 1995, Jyvaskyla, Finland. DESCRIPTION The Doctoral Consortium Workshop brings together PhD students within the information systems engineering field. Its intention is to give them the oppurtunity to present their research, to discuss it with other doctoral students and to get a feed-back about their work. During the Consortium, an expert panel consisting of two (or three) prominent professors whithin the field of Information Systems Engineering will act as a catalyst for the discussions. The consortium will be held in connection with the CAiSE*95 conference in Jyvaskyla. It will be part of the Workshop programme of the CAiSE*95 conference. The two first days of the conference have been reserved for the consortium and the other workshops (i.e., on 12th and 13th June, 1995). THEMES The Doctoral Consortium is open for contributions in line with the CAiSE*95 conference : AI supported ISE, Business process reengineering, CASE and Meta-CASE, Cognitive aspects of the design process, Dynamic modelling, Entreprise modelling, GIS and groupware design, Information management and planning, Knowledge acquisition, Maintenance and reverse engineering, Method engineering, Multi-media information systems, Object-oriented analysis and design, Object-oriented database design, Prototyping , Quality management, Requirement engineering, Reuse, Software process modelling and support, Temporal information systems, User interface design, Workflow management SUBMISSIONS : To apply for participating at the consortium, you must provide 5 copies of an abstract of your doctoral work. The abstract should : 1- state clearly since when the research began, if it's a full time or part time work, and how the research work is financed; 2- identify clearly the research question; 3- outline the hard problems in the field of research and the current solutions (if any) with the help of 4 to 5 known references; 4- present the preliminary ideas and state clearly the proposed approach; 5- present the contributions of the applicant and the results of the work (if any). The length of the abstract should not exceed two pages. Submissions will be selected based on the topic, quality, and interest of the two-pages abstract they submit. Admission is limited to 20 students. IMPORTANT DATES Submission deadline (camera ready format) : March 1st 1995 Notification of acceptance : April 15th 1995 CONTACT ADDRESS : Said ASSAR Departement des Systemes d'Information Institut National des Telecommunications 9, rue Charles Fourier 91011 EVRY - FRANCE phone : +33 1 60 76 44 88 fax : +33 1 60 76 44 93 E-mail : assar@galaxie.int-evry.fr For more information about the CAiSE*95 conference itself, contact : E-mail : caise95@jyu.fi World Wide Web (WWW) : http://www.jyu.fi/~mor/ A------------------------------------------------------- From: rick@cra.org (Rick Weingarten) Subject: CRA Board Member Nominations The Computing Research Association is asking for your help in suggesting nominees for the CRA Board of Directors. Each spring CRA's member organizations elect about a third of our board members. Candidates are not required to be CRA members. Our nominating committee, chaired by Rick Adrion of the University Massachusetts at Amherst, is seeking nominations. [The complete announcement, including responsibilities of a CRA board member and nomination forms, have been excised. Send me or Rick email for the complete announcement.] A------------------------------------------------------- From: wmyers@encore.ncren.net (Belmont Abbey College) Subject: CFP: Information System Education Conference C A L L F O R P A P E R S - ISECON '95 - The Information System Education Conference IS Education: Meeting the Challenge of a Global Marketplace NOVEMBER 3-5, 1995 Charlotte, NC The Adams Mark Hotel ISECON '95 is soliciting papers, panels, and workshops covering a wide range of viewpoints from: Professional educators, both academic and corporate Developers of educational delivery systems Researchers in IS methods and technology Individuals interested in methods of bridging the gap between academia and business in the IS area Accepted refereed papers and abstracts will be published in the conference proceedings. INSTRUCTIONS 1. Submit by APRIL 15, 1995 five copies of your paper, panel proposal or workshop description, each with a cover page. Author(s) identification should appear only on the cover page. The cover page should include paper title, names of author(s), addresses, affiliation, phone number, E- mail address (if available), and intended track. 2. Workshop proposals must include detailed outline of the workshop and vita(e) of presenter(s). Workshops can be 75 or 135 minutes long. 3. Panel proposals must include a description of the topic and identify potential panelists. 4. The author(s) and affiliation of the author(s) should not be identified in the body of the paper. 5. Papers must include a one-paragraph abstract. 6. Papers must be double-spaced and not exceed 20 pages. 7. The final copy of accepted papers will be limited to 8 single-spaced paged. (Detailed instructions included with acceptance notice.) 8. Each submission must include a self-addressed stamped postcard with the title. The postcard will be returned as notification of receipt. 9. Authors will be notified by June 1, 1995 regarding the acceptance of their papers, workshops, and panels. 10. All -paper- submissions are to be sent to Dr. Bruce White, Program Chair, Refereed Papers, Dakota State University, 150 CB Kennedy Center, Madison SD 57042 (605)256-5165 WhiteB@Columbia.DSU.EDU All -panels and workshop- proposals are to be sent to Dr. Karen Forcht, Chair, Panels and Workshops, James Madison University, College of Business, Harrisonburg, VA 22807 (703)568-3057 Fac_Forcht@VAX1.ACS.JMU.EDU Any other questions should be directed to the conference chair, Eli Cohen, Wichita State at Eli_Cohen@ACM.ORG The WWW home page for this conference is Http://WWW.Colostate.EDU/Depts/isecon95 TOPICS include, but are not limited to: IS Curricula CIS Program Direction and Issues Small College or Community College Programs Emerging and Leading Edge Technologies Industry and IS Education Relationships International IS Issues E------------------------------------------------------------------- FASE Volume 5 Number 04 Send newsletter articles to fase-submit@d.umn.edu or fase@d.umn.edu Send requests to add, delete, or modify a subscription to fase-request@d.umn.edu Send problem reports, returned mail, or other correspondence about this newsletter to fase-owner@d.umn.edu or kpierce@d.umn.edu You can retrieve back issues by anonymous FTP from from ricis.cl.uh.edu. You can access them through WWW at URL http://ricis.cl.uh.edu/FASE/ Keith Pierce, Editor Laurie Werth, Advisory Committee Department of Computer Science Dept. of Computer Science University of Minnesota, Duluth Taylor Hall 2.124 Duluth, MN 55812-2496 University of Texas at Austin Telephone: (218) 726-7194 Austin, Texas 78712 Fax: (218) 726-6360 Telephone: (512) 471-9535 Email: kpierce@d.umn.edu Fax: (512)471-8885 Email: lwerth@cs.utexas.edu David Eichmann, FASE Archivist Asst. Prof. / RBSE Director of R & D Web: http://ricis.cl.uh.edu/eichmann/ Software Engineering Program Phone: (713) 283-3875 University of Houston - Clear Lake fax: (713) 283-3810 Box 113, 2700 Bay Area Blvd. Email: eichmann@rbse.jsc.nasa.gov Houston, TX 77058 or: eichmann@cl.uh.edu RBSE on the Web: http://rbse.jsc.nasa.gov/eichmann/rbse.html