Ada in Introductory Computer Science Courses

Abstract

Abstract : Sacred Heart University's current computer science curriculum has been modified in the 1992-1993 school year after receiving an ARPA grant(Advanced Research Project Agency) for Undergraduate Curriculum and Course Development in Software Engineering and the Use of Ada. BAA 91-18, Category 1. The grant entitled Ada in Introductory Computer Science Course, allowed for the modification of both introductory programming courses to use Ada as the language of choice, since it is a good software engineering tool that can best support many of the goals and principles of software engineering. The two introductory computer science courses CS050 (Introduction to Computer Science) and CS051 (Data Structures) were developed to include Ada and software engineering principles. The developed courses allows the student to apply a methodology using Ada and some principles of software engineering to build software that is maintainable efficient and understandable at an introductory level. The courses utilized features of Ada to support the development of high-quality, reliable, reusable, and portable software. Learning to conform to good programming practices using Ada provided very clear ideas of software engineering principles and goals without formally teaching software engineering concepts. The students will formally learn software engineering in their junior year. Basic software engineering principles can be indirectly learned during the first two programming courses