Incorporating a disciplined software development process in to introductory computer science programming courses: initial results

Abstract

As the processing power of computers has increased, more complex and larger problems have been introduced. The lack of a disciplined approach to the solution of such problems has created a situation referred to as the crisis. That is, software products have been behind schedule, over budget and unreliable. The Software Engineering Institute (SEI), through the Capability Maturity Model (CMM), has addressed a software organization's capability with five maturity levels. CMM is based on a team approach to software production. Watts Humphrey, in the Personal Software Process (PSP) concept, addresses the roles and processes that individual team members should follow in order to be an effective member of a team. PSP is being taught to software engineers in different industries and also to graduate students in mainly Master of Software Engineering (MSE) programs. In their experiment the authors started teaching a simplified version of PSP to freshmen in the Computer Science program. The result of the experiment has shown that the students have gained better time management and defect management skills, which are the basis for more effective software production. The paper describes how to incorporate a disciplined software development process into the first introductory computer science programming courses, with the major emphasis on the first course. They share some of their initial results.