Forum for Academic Software Engineering Volume 5, Number 08, Thu Mar 16 08:34:44 CST 1995 Topics: Need C software for OO Project Requirements for a First Year Object-Oriented Teaching Language Desirability of OO _teaching_ language for CS1? The SEI People Capability Maturity Model (P-CMM) Software Engineering on-line archives PATNEWS: Worst software patents of the decade awarded to HP/IBM Alert #2: Fifth Conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy CALL FOR PAPERS - Object-Oriented & Entity Relationship Modelling Computing Book review index A------------------------------------------------------- From: jalote@iitk.ernet.in (pankaj jalote) Subject: Need C software for OO Project We have a project with two M.Tech. students to study the effect of OO methods vis-a-vis earlier methods. For this, we need source code for some C projects. The idea is to collect some C projects and then redo them using OO and then do some studies. We are picking up existing C projects so that there is no bias in selecting projects (many books on OO select examples that seem well suited for OO). Here is what we need: We need 2 or 3 C programs that are self contained in that they use standard C library calls and Unix Calls. The size should be between 2KLOC and 4 KLOC (we have some smaller projects already). The code should be reasonably well commented/documented and the external specs/requirements should be reasonably well known and documented to some extent, such that with the existing specs documentation and playing with the code we can construct a relatively complete SRS. SRS will be the starting point for our project. If you can help, please contact me. You should be willing to give the source code and all the documentation that you may have, without any conditions to its usage/modification etc. It will be even better if you have a desired list of changes that you are planning on doing on your existing source. Or maybe you have already made some defined changes and have the earlier version of the software available - in that case the earlier version, with its doc, and the list of changes is what we need. In return of this help, you can get the C++ code of your project in about a years time (i.e. if your code is used for the experiments). Thanks in advance to everybody. Pankaj ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Pankaj Jalote E-mail: jalote@iitk.ernet.in Dept. of Computer Sc. & Engg. Fax: +91 512 250260/250007 I.I.T., Kanpur - 208 016 Tel.: 257638, 257619 (Off) INDIA Tel.: 251620, 258501 (Res) A------------------------------------------------------- From: budd@ada.CS.ORST.EDU (Tim Budd) Subject: Requirements for a First Year Object-Oriented Teaching Language [ED. This article and the next were gleaned from newsgroup comp.edu.] Recently in this newsgroup somebody mentioned the paper ``Requirements for a first year object-oriented teaching languages'', by Kolling, Koch and Rosenberg (Sydney, Australia). After reading their paper (ftp:://ftp.cs.su.au/pub/tr/TR94_488.ps.Z) my reaction was that most of the goals they cite were also goals I shared in the development of my multiparadigm programming language Leda. These include the desire for a clean and SMALL language (roughly the size and complexity of Pascal) that should support object-oriented programming in a natural fashion, be strongly typed, garbage collected, and so on. I will admit that I go somewhat further in Leda then they propose. Functions are first-class values, for example, and I try to support both a functional and a logic-programming style of description in a fairly natural form in addition to object-oriented programming. And there are aspects of Leda with which I am still not yet satisfied; I have no good way of describing mutually recursive classes, nor facilities for separate compilation. But for a teaching language I think it has many nice features. Other problems with Leda are what you might expect -- since it is the result of a research project the programming environment is not commercial quality, there are bugs in the implemenation, and so on. But I think the search for new teaching languages is something that should be pursued, and I think Leda is part of that search. Further information on Leda can be found in my web pages, at http://www.cs.orst.edu/~budd/leda.html . Information accessible starting from this point includes the grammer, language description, and a couple sample chapters from my recently published book. --tim budd, oregon state university A------------------------------------------------------- From: mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman) Subject: Desirability of OO _teaching_ language for CS1? In article , Darrah Chavey wrote: >Having just gone to 6 talks at SIGCSE that all said "You know, we've started >teaching C++ in CS1 (or CS2), and it's really not as bad as you might think", >I've come away more convinced than ever that we should _not_ teach C++ at >this level. (The paper you mentioned, plus 2 others and the >Birds-of-a-Feather session helped convinced me of this.) Considering the supposed popularity of C++ in the world, I am quite astounded at the lack of enthusiasm of all these teachers who are trying to do C++ in CS1 and CS2. Most of the ones I've met are just as equivocal as the ones you encountered at SIGCSE. For an interesting comparison, consider the almost uniformly positive statements made by those introducing Ada in CS1 or CS2. I was a speaker on that panel at SIGCSE 94, and if you read the panel abstracts from those two, you'll see what I mean. I certainly have no problem with the idea of choosing an intro language based on its pedagogical merit; indeed, that is exactly why we Ada fans have chosen it. I have no particular problem with Scheme as an intro language either, on any of the others, as long as they are chosen on the merits and not on the basis of a supposed popularity contest. I am quite amazed at the - overall - thin intellectual arguments made in favor of C++ in intro courses; the most common reasons given are - the kids will need it for jobs in industry (true, at least these days, but what's that got to do with _freshman_ courses?); - the kids will need it in upper-division courses (also true, at least these days, but why force the first-year courses to bear this burden? Why not introduce it, as we do at GW, in the later courses where it belongs?) We've had threads on this group before on the merits of Ada, so I don't want to start another one. We can continue this by e-mail. Meanwhile, you can peruse this list of colleges and universities who are using Ada with success in CS1 and CS2. The length of this list has grown steadily, about 25-50% per year. A few schools have dropped off, but in the cases I am aware of, the upper-division faculty voted to force the change on the CS1/CS2 experts, for the "reasons" given above. Mike Feldman [ED: To receive the list, send email to fase-request@d.umn.edu with Subject line SEND ADA] A------------------------------------------------------- From: weh@sei.cmu.edu (Bill Hefley) Subject: The SEI People Capability Maturity Model (P-CMM) Really good organizations recognize that they have to do more that just feed and water the best available people at regular intervals. They recognize that the good processes thay have to have in place deal with the people aspects of their work--that people are an asset to the organization, not an expense. They also recognize that it really does take paying attention to process, people, management, and technology in order to excel. That's why we're working on the People Capability Maturity Model. Using the SEI's Capability Maturity Model for Software (CMM), many organizations have made improvements in their software processes and practices. Many of these organizations have discovered that their continued improvement requires significant changes in the way they manage people, changes that are not fully accounted for in the CMM for Software. To date, most improvement programs for software organizations have emphasized process or technology, not people. The People Capability Maturity Model (P-CMM) is an adaptation of the Capability Maturity Model for Software (CMM) to focus on developing the organization's talent, especially in software and information systems development. The motivation for the P-CMM is to radically improve the ability of software organizations to attract, develop, motivate, organize, and retain the talent needed to steadily improve software development capability. The P-CMM is a maturity framework that describes the key elements of managing and developing the talent of an organization. It describes an evolutionary improvement path from an ad hoc, careless approach to managing the talent, to a mature, disciplined development of the knowledge, skills, and motivation of the people that fuel business performance. The draft P-CMM (Version 0.2) has been available since November, 1994, and was the subject of review at the National Workshop, held in December, 1994. It has been developed based on the concepts described above and current best practices. It is being widely distributed for review by the members of the P-CMM Advisory Board, P-CMM Correspondence Group and other interested reviewers. Additional details are available via the World-Wide Web at http://www.sei.cmu.edu/SEI/pubs/abstracts/pmcmm.html Version 0.3 will be available in late April, 1995. To become a member of the correspondence group (and receive P-CMM Version 0.3 for review), contact: Marlene McDonald Software Engineering Institute 412-268-7701 fax 412-268-7701 e-mail mtm@sei.cmu.edu The attachment below gives some additional background on the P-CMM efforts. ____________________________________________________________________________ Bill Hefley - Senior Member of the Technical Staff Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon Univ. Pittsburgh, PA 15213 Office: +1-412-268-7793, Fax: +1-412-268-5758, internet: weh@sei.cmu.edu ======================================================================== WHAT IS THE P-CMM? The P-CMM provides software organizations with guidance on how to gain control of their processes for people management and human resource (HR) practices and serves to help software organizations: -- characterize the maturity of their human resource practices -- set priorities for improving their level of talent -- integrate talent growth with process improvement -- establish a culture of software engineering excellence The P-CMM is a companion to the capability maturity model for software (CMM) for integrating people management activities in software process improvement programs. Key P-CMM practice areas include: -- recruiting -- selection -- performance management -- training -- compensation -- career development -- organization design -- team and culture development Vision of the P-CMM Software development and information systems organizations will become centers of excellence that attract and develop talent into the most motivated and productive software engineering teams in the world. Investment in this talent will increase the organization's capability to engineer software and to gain leverage from the benefits achieved through improvements in both technology and process. Mission of the P-CMM To enhance the readiness of software development and information systems organizations to undertake increasingly complex applications by helping them attract, grow, motivate, deploy, and retain the talent needed to improve their software development capability. Strategy of the P-CMM Incorporate people management capabilities into software improvement programs by: -- creating a model that complements the CMM -- creating an assessment method that integrates with software process assessment methods -- integrating HR issues into the work of software engineering process groups (SEPGs) -- creating a team-readiness assessment method This effort is being sponsored by the Software Process Program, P-CMM Project, of the Software Engineering Institute. The Software Engineering Institute is a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense and operated by Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A------------------------------------------------------- From: kpierce@d.umn.edu (Keith Pierce) Subject: Software Engineering on-line archives [If you know of other archives that software engineering educators should know about, send the information to me for posting.] SOFTWARE ENGINEERING -- GENERAL David Lamb (dalamb@qucis.queensu.ca) maintains an archive of software engineering information, including lists of software engineering readings, software and CASE vendors, information on formal specification, metrics, OOA, OOD, etc., and pointers to other information such as David Eichmann's list of software engineering degree education programs. This information is available through the World-Wide Web as http://www.qucis.queensu.ca:1999/Software-Engineering/ CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT An FAQ can be retrieved from: http://www.iac.honeywell.com/Pub/Tech/CM/index.html The FAQ contains short descriptions of most CM tools out there. SOFTWARE ENGINEERING LABORATORY Web information about the University of Maryland's Software Engineering laboratory can be seen at http://groucho.gsfc.nasa.gov/Code_550/SEL_hp.html A------------------------------------------------------- From: Carey Heckman Subject: Alert #2: Fifth Conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy * WHO'S CFP? Do you belong at the Fifth Conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy (CFP'95) which takes place March 28-31, 1995 in Burlingame, California? You do if you are concerned about the definition of rights, and the processes by which they are being defined, now that computer and telecommunications technologies have become part of mainstream living, conversation, and politics. CFP'95 participants will include people from the fields of computer science, business, public policy, government, law enforcement, research, information, health, law, civil liberties, library science, education, social science, and many others. [To receive the entire text of the announcement and program, send email to fase-request@d.umn.edu with subject line SEND CFP95] A------------------------------------------------------- From: srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian) Subject: PATNEWS: Worst software patents of the decade awarded to HP/IBM As a warning to the software industry, and as a measure of how bad things are getting, what follows are two of the worst first claims for software patents ever issued, and in theory give IBM and HP license to sue most software developers and users in the world. These 1995 patents are awarded my Worst Software Patents Of The Decade prize for mocking the patenting process orders more than any of my sarcastic Internet postings. 5,388,993 IBM DATE ISSUED: Feb. 14, 1995 DATE FILED: Jul. 7, 1992 What is claimed is: A method of demonstrating a computer system application program, which comprises the computer system implemented steps of: running said application program; providing tutorial information to a user; and, sending simulated user-input messages to said application program thereby to demonstrate the operation of said application program. 5,386,564 Hewlett-Packard DATE ISSUED: Jan. 31, 1995 DATE FILED: Feb. 24, 1993 What is claimed is: A computer implemented method within an operating system process comprising the step of: (a) in response to a user pasting data within a clipboard to a window controlled by the operating system process, performing the following substeps: (a.1) creating, by the operating system process, a new data file for the data; (a.2) placing the data within the new data file; and, (a.3) displaying, by the operating system process, an icon for the new data file. Here two multi-billion dollar computer companies are allowed extremely trivial claims, citing NO non-patent prior art. The patent lawyers responsible should be brought up on charges, especially IBM's, who sit on the largest personal body of software prior art yet cite none of it on half of all issued IBM software patents. Anyone with $4000 to spare, send it my way and I will file reexamination requests. The AIPLA should form a special investigative committee to study what went on for these two software patents. Greg Aharonian Internet Patent News Service (for subscription info, send 'help' to patents@world.std.com ) (for prior art search services info, send 'prior' to patents@world.std.com ) (for WWW patent searching, try http://sunsite.unc.edu/patents/intropat.html ) A------------------------------------------------------- From: mikep@icis.qut.edu.au Subject: CALL FOR PAPERS - Object-Oriented & Entity Relationship Modelling Fourteenth International Conference on Object-Oriented and Entity Relationship Modelling (O-O ER) December 13-15, 1995 Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia The objective of the Object-Oriented Entity-Relationship (O-O ER) Conference is to provide a forum for researchers and practitioners in the area of conceptual modelling to interact, present existing results and explore directions that will affect the current and future generation of information systems. This year's theme will be dedicated to the Application of Object-Oriented/Entity-Relationship Technologies to Information Systems Modelling. The Entity-Relationship approach has been extensively used in many database system and information system design methodologies. Recently, Object-Oriented Technology has drawn tremendous interest not only from the research community but it has also moved into mainstream industrial software design and development. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: --Integrating the ER & O-O technologies --Design methodologies for object-oriented information systems --Re-engineering of database systems --Business process modelling --Enterprise modelling --Temporal databases --Geographic information systems --Secure databases --Schema evolution --Object-oriented multi-media databases --Advanced query interfaces --CASE environments --Expert systems and applications. For the purposes of O-O ER'95 modelling will be considered in a broad sense and can cover any theoretical as well as practical issue. Practitioner's papers reporting on actual experience are particularly welcome and will be reviewed in a separate category. Five copies of original and unpublished papers up to 5,000 words should be sent to the Program Committee Chair. Submissions must include contact information (contact name, postal and e-mail address, and phone number), a 100-word abstract, and explicitly indicate the paper area. Paper, tutorial and panel submission: 21 April, 1995 Notification of acceptance: 26 June, 1995 Camera ready papers due: 27 August, 1995 The General Conference Chair is: Fred Lochovsky Dept. of Computer Science Hong-Kong Univ. of Science & Technology Clear Water Bay Kawloon, Hong Kong Voice: +852-358-6996 Fax: +852-358-1477 E-mail: fred@cs.ust.hk The Program Committee Chair is: Mike Papazoglou Queensland Univ of Technology School of Information Systems GPO Box 2434, Brisbane 4001, Australia Voice: +61-7-864 1972, Fax: +61-7-864 1969. E-mail: mikep@icis.qut.edu.au Up-to-date information is also available in the World Wide Web: http://www.icis.qut.edu.au/~er95 The registration fee will be approximately AU$350. A------------------------------------------------------- From: roberts@mukluk.decus.ca (Rob Slade, Social Convener to the Net) Subject: Computing book review index Book review index This is a listing of (mostly technical) book reviews. The initial coding is the review file name (and approximate size of the file): this is followed by the name of the book and author(s) and a very brief description. (Some versions of this file may also contain listings of software reviews.) [ED: The list is an eclectic mix of technical and popular books on computing. I removed the very long listing, leaving a randomly selected subset of the index. For a complete index, see instructions at the end of the article.] BKFOUNCS RVW 1221 "Foundations of Computer Science", Aho/Ullman, 1992, 0-7167- 8233-2 - good coverage of the theoretical basics, but dull BKFPGAWK RVW 2580 "FPGA Workout", van den Bout, 1994, 0-9642187-0-4, U$19.95 - good material for those teaching digital electronics courses, and a good way for home users to get into teaching themselves BKFRINSC RVW 2096 "Firewalls and Internet Security", Cheswick/Bellovin, 1994, 0-201-63357-4, U$26.95 - solid and practical guide for building firewall machines on TCP/IP (or other networks) BKFUTCRM RVW 919 "Future Crime", Bova, 1990, 0-812-53241-4 - fiction, short story collection only one dealing (tangentially) with data security BKFUZHBK RVW 3079 "The Fuzzy Systems Handbook", Cox, 1994, 0-12-194270-8 - good conceptual and practical introduction to fuzzy logic and systems programming BKGARGVR RVW 2004 "Garage Virtual Reality", Jacobson, 1994, 0-672-30270-5, U$29.95/C$37.95 - fun and practical introduction for the hobbyist interested in working in virtual reality BKGDPCNT RVW 1990 "Insider's Guide to Personal Computing & Networking", Segal, 1992, 0-672-30180-6, U$29.95/C$37.95 - pretty banal puff pieces from "names" in the industry BKGEMACS RVW 2170 "Learning GNU Emacs", Cameron/Rosenblatt, 1992, 0-937175-84- 6 - good introduction to the editor, and for those who know the editor a good introduction to the environment BKGIGNET RVW 3564 "Gigabit Networking", Partridge - good overview of some of the latest hot topics in comms BKGLBLNT RVW 4532 "Global Networks", Harasim, 1993, 0-262-08222-5, U$29.95 - broad ranging topics but limited and uninteresting papers on the use of computer mediated communications BKGLBTCH RVW 7883 "Globalization, Technology and Competition", Bradley/Hausman/Nolan - what business thinks about technology and communications - not much BKGTONLN RVW 3091 "Get On-Line!", Wood, 1993, 0-471-58926-8 - general intor to PC/modem communications, still not very good Publishers or authors wishing to have their books reviewed and added to the list should have copies sent to Rob Slade at 3118 Baird Road, North Vancouver, BC, Canada, V7K 2G6. Publishers shipping from outside of Canada are advised to label the materials as samples per GST section 215(1), without value and not subject to GST. (The book review project is looking for sponsorship. Please contact roberts@decus.ca.) copyright Robert M. Slade, 1993, 1994, 1995 REVIEW.LST 950203 ============= Vancouver ROBERTS@decus.ca | "Kill all: God will know his own." Institute for Robert_Slade@sfu.ca | - originally spoken by Papal Research into Rob.Slade@f733.n153.z12/ | Legate Bishop Arnald-Amalric User .fidonet.org | of Citeaux, at the siege of Security Canada V7K 2G6 | Beziers, 1209 AD ============= for back issues: Contacts list: cert.org, /pub/virus-l/docs/reviews CyberStore or The Cage Reviews: cert.org, /pub/virus-l/docs/reviews/pc, CyberStore or The Cage Book reviews: ftp x2ftp.oulo.fi, /pub/books/slade (most complete) ftp.cyberstore.ca, /pub/BookReviews gopher://gopher.technical.powells.portland.or.us:70 gopher://chuangtsu.acns.carleton.edu/11/libraries/carleton/Internet/Other http://med-amsa.bu.edu/medbooks/medbooks.html Also try contacting sanj@wordsworth.com, ibic@sunsite.unc.edu, jkcohen@uci.edu or afinet@books.com for progress reports Column: CyberStore or The Cage CyberStore: commercial, telnet cyberstore.ca or call +1-604-526-3676 The Cage: FREQ from 1:153/733 or call +1-604-261-2347 E------------------------------------------------------------------- FASE Volume 5 Number 08 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