HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ddking@dante.nmsu.edu (Dwight King)
Subject: Automatic Account Allocations
Organization: New Mexico State University
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 16:01:56 GMT


I have a unique question. I have a program that is written in C. This
program is used by the Computer Center here on Campus to grant students
accounts on the systems that are available. The student simply logs on to
the machine that they wish to work on (UNIX, VAX, Mainframe) using the ID
of accounts. This is a captive account that asks them for their Social
Security Number and their birth date. Then with this information the
captive account verifies their enrollment as a student on a central
database. If they are enrolled then the captive account then creates them
an account on that system.

What I am interested in finding out is if there is a commercial product
that would do the same thing or something similar?

I thank you for the responses before hand.
Newsgroups: comp.edu,comp.misc,soc.college,sci.edu
From: phardie@nastar.uucp (Pete Hardie)
Subject: Re: Advice needed on relevance of Computer Science Classes/Major.
Organization: Digital Transmission Systems, Duluth, GA.
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 14:41:54 GMT

In article <1itclaINNch0@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> am893@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Michael Hauben) writes:
>I would like to be able to study and contribute to the new
>field of computer networking and telecommunications.
> 
>Is Computer Science a valuable major as an undergraduate
>student?

Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times YES!

CS is (IMHO) required to utilize computers in the most effective way.

>What I would like to know, from those both currently in the
>major, and those working outside of academia in the computer
>industry, is if the computer science major is worthwhile. If
>it does represent an education and not just a training?

Yes, it does.  You learn the basics of algorithm design, OS design, etc.
You learn what has been done before, and why it worked/failed.  You
learn how to decide a (data structure/algorithm/whatever) is good or
bad for a task.

I have seen far to many people think that a few programming language courses
have prepared them to write large software systems, when they are woefully
unprepared for the effects of large databases, badly-coupled function
modules, inefficient sorting, etc, etc, etc.

In electrical engineering, you learn about basic circuits (resistors, 
inductors, capacitors) before you go on to digital circuits, or AC circuits.
Similarly, people writing software need to know about the basics of that
field before they go into the wilds of software system design.

-- 
Pete Hardie:  phardie@nastar  (voice) (404) 497-0101
Digital Transmission Systems, Inc., Duluth GA
Member, DTS Dart Team           |  cat * | egrep -v "signature virus|infection" 
Position:  Goalie               |
Xref: sparky comp.edu:2282 sci.edu:1269
From: LMEBGO@kiera.ericsson.se (Bengt G{llmo, L M Ericsson, Stockholm, Sweden)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,sci.edu
Subject: MSc programs for telecom engineers
Date: 7 Jan 1993 10:27:51 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

Ericsson is a fairly big company in telecommunications.  We have a
fund, that gives stipends to a few employees every year so that they
can go abroad for a year or more to study or do some research - a sort 
of sabbathical if you wish.  In the last several years, almost all
applicants to these stipends have wanted to study for a MBA.  This
bothers me and others.  There is nothing wrong with engineers
studying business administration, but one would expect *some* 
engineers in a high tech company to want to increase their *technical*
competence.  I am collecting information on study programs, e.g. MSc 
programs, that could be used for that purpose. 

One possibility is that they address telecommunications broadly, 
i.e. include courses not only in telecom engineering, but also in 
related disciplines, like telecom management, computer science, 
business, public policy, etc.  I know of one such program, Carnegie 
Mellon's Information Networking program.  IEEE Spectrum October 1991 
hints that similar programs exist at Polytechnic Inst of NY, 
U. of Colorado, U. of Pittsburgh, and George Washington University.  
If you can provide information about these programs or others, or 
have e-mail addresses of people I could ask directly, please let me 
know, probably best by e-mail to lmebgo@kiera.ericsson.se

Another possibility is that the study programs address a narrower
area, that is important to us, in some depth.  Examples of such 
areas are many parts of computer science (logic programming, object 
orientation, real time systems, software engineering), advanced optics, 
radio (mobile telephony), micro electronics, CAD, and of course
advanced courses on telecommunications. Again, if you know of such 
programs, please let me know.

Your help will be much appreciated!

Bengt    
-- 
Forwarded-By:
Bengt Gallmo                        e-mail: lmebgo@kiera.ericsson.se
Telefonaktiebolaget L M Ericsson    phone:  +46 8 719 1940
S-126 25 STOCKHOLM                  fax:    +46 8 719 3988
SWEDEN

The bad thing about good things is that they usually come to an end.
The good thing about bad things is that they, also, usually come to an end.
Newsgroups: comp.edu
From:  bnn@softp.kiev.ua (Nick Bezrukov)
Subject: Re: Edication crisis
Reply-To: bnn%softp.kiev.ua@ussr.eu.net
Organization: Softpanorama, Kiev, Ukraine
Date: Fri,  8 Jan 93 21:33:59 +0200
Summary: teaching of problem solving is of primary importance
Keywords: teaching of programming, excessive formalisms


Dec 30 in article on "Education crisis (was RE: how much math...)"
Herman Rubin (hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu) writes:

> My own opinion, based
> on observations of students from sophomores to PhD students, is that the
> learning of methods, excessive formalism, and special cases interferes
> with the learning of concepts.  Again, memorizing the definitions, and
> even memorizing proofs, does not teach the concepts; they are learned
> only when they can be used in new situations.

> Both in languages, including computer languages, and in mathematics,
> understanding the structure can facilitate learning the details, and
> acquiring proficiency in their use.

My own experience strongly support this observations. Teaching of concepts
and problem solving are of primary importance. And as for teachers with
inclination to excessive formal definitions I definitely feel that there is
something rotten in there way of teaching of programming.  There are too much
influence of fashion (proofs of correctness, remember), too much interest in
subjects of quite esoteric nature and too wide gap between theory and
practice.  After all every programming language is just another example of
ability of natural language to extend itself to cover new grounds and as such
an ability to use that language is different from the world of definitions and
proofs.

We should not assume that "programming" is some sort of uniform(mathematical)
theory. A programmer's job is to get things done and as such often requires
not a proving of invariants to find an error, but finding new ways of jumping
over obstacles or simply knocking them down.

And I believe that one of the reason of "freshman computer fever"
is that "addicts" discover here a lot of opportunity for creativity,
communication and achievement, not the ability to prove some properties of
loops :-).

-- Nick



--- 
Nick Bezrukov, Softpanorama, S, | bnn@softp.kiev.ua | Text may contain
Kiev Institute of Commerce and   | 463/10.1 (FIDO)   | spelling & grammar
Economics. Tel. (7-044)544-2537  |                   | errors.
From: thomas@uts.EDU.AU (T Brodhursthill)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Announcing Relational Database add-in for Excel
Date: 11 Jan 93 10:26:31 GMT
Organization: University of Technology, Sydney
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: amdahl.ccsd.uts.edu.au
Keywords: Excel, database
Organisation: University of Technology, Sydney, Australia

This is a brief announcement of a soon to be released shareware relational database package for Microsoft Excel.

It was born out of the need to edit student marks in class groups, and so is very useful for this purpose.

The program is called Referee, and is available by contacting Thomas Brodhurst-Hill at thomas@phys.uts.edu.au.

If you wish to look at a pre-release version (before the final release in a week or so) let me know.

Tom
From: buccb@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Carlos Dragonslayer Butler)
Subject: Re: Advice needed on relevance of Computer Science Classes/Major.
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 18:07:37 GMT

In a previous episode on comp.misc,
phardie@nastar.uucp (Pete Hardie) drops complete science:

>In article <1itclaINNch0@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> am893@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Michael Hauben) writes:
>>I would like to be able to study and contribute to the new
>>field of computer networking and telecommunications.
>> 
>>Is Computer Science a valuable major as an undergraduate
>>student?
>
>Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times YES!
>
>CS is (IMHO) required to utilize computers in the most effective way.

	If you change "utilize" to "develop," would agree with you. CS
at this institution, seems to be unrelated to computer "usage" and more
related to "development." By "usage" I mean, end-user applications. A
CS major would write the software, but may not use it.
	It's kind of a subtle distinction, and is hard for me to get the
point across. A decent analogy is using a hammer. Stanley may be able to
build a hell of a hammer, but it takes a carpenter to use the hammer 
effectively to build a house (or whatever). A CS major may know how to
write one hell of a database, but it may take an English major, for
instance, to effectively use that database (or database tools) to 
create the Wilson index.
	Why do I get the feeling the point is still foggy. :)

-- 
               Carlos D. Butler, buccb@after.math.uiuc.edu
     President of Butler Services--DTP, typing, and information gathering
    Champaign, IL      (217) 359-7632 Home	     (217) 373-4781 Pager
          "People often condescend what they fail to comprehend...
Xref: sparky comp.edu:2274 comp.software-eng:5210
Newsgroups: comp.edu,comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Class Project For Software Engineering Course
From: jacob@latcs1.lat.oz.au (Jacob L. Cybulski)
Date: 5 Jan 93 05:34:01 GMT
Organization: Comp Sci, La Trobe Uni, Australia

In article <1ia3e0INN9m5@aludra.usc.edu>, karrer@aludra.usc.edu (Anthony Karrer) writes:
> At LMU we have been using a project-oriented software engineering
> class for the last ten years, and I've been teaching it for the
> last three years.  The projects that we've found to be most effective
> for a semester long course (if you expect the students to achieve
> a working product ... some courses go only through detailed design)
> are board games such as Monopoly, Risk, Othello, Backgammon, etc.
> 
> These are particularly well suited to this class because they are
> fairly well known by students or can easily be learned.  As such you
> avoid the many of the problems of ill-defined requirements specifications
> leading to heart-ache at the end of the semester.

Here at La Trobe University we also have a project-oriented SE subject.
We have about 180 students who form teams of 5-7 students. The projects
are based on the Software Hut model where the teams develop software
components which then they exchange (sell/buy) to develop systems and
applications. We always use "real" problems so that the students could
experience the real problems, in the past we were also using real clients
from industry but we found that we were losing somewhere the educational
objectives. The typical problems we used in the past were :- 

	Commercial applications:
	o	scientific reference library
	o	wine cellar management system
	o	polling system
	o	dental management system
	o	jewellers management system
	o	tax return calculator
	o	etc.

	The system software:
	o	hypertext authoring and browsing system
	o	spreadsheet calculator
	o	office automation system
	o	assembler/compiler
	o	search/replace utilities
	o	expert system software
	o	etc.

We always try to give realistic requirements, i.e. they are quite
incomplete and obscure and we let the students negotiate their requirements,
formalise them, plan their projects (over 1 year), specify, design,
fully implement, test and document their software.

I would strongly recommend against game-like projects and very well defined 
requirements - spoon feeding. Of course I don't know what type of students 
do you have in your Uni but ours are very militant and their unions are quite 
strong so be prepared to get hassles from the students over such a large 
project!

Jacob

=============================================================================
Jacob L. Cybulski,  Deputy  Director,  Amdahl  Australian  Intelligent  Tools
Programme,  Dept of  Comp Sci  &  Comp Eng,  La Trobe  University,  Bundoora,
Vic. 3083, Australia. Ph: +613 479 1270, Fax: +613 470 4915, Telex: AA 33143,
E-Mail: jacob@latcs1.lat.oz.au.                                     ... G'Day
=============================================================================
Newsgroups: comp.edu
From: evs@cs.columbia.edu (Eric Siegel)
Subject: Want good C text ref
Organization: Columbia University Department of Computer Science
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 20:30:50 GMT

Is there an Intro to C Programming textbook good for people who have never
programmed (advanced high school)?

Newsgroups: comp.edu,mi.news
From: jipping@cs.hope.edu (Mike Jipping)
Subject: Undergrad Research Positions Offered for Summer '93
Organization: Hope College Dept of CS
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 19:45:25 GMT

                  Undergraduate Research in Computer Science

                                  Summer 1993

                                  Hope College
                         Department of Computer Science
                               Holland, MI  49423


The Computer Science Department at Hope College with support from the
Research Experiences for Undergraduates Program of the National Science
Foundation, is providing an opportunity for a number of undergraduate
computer science students to participate in a ten-week research program.

Dates: May 24, 1993 to July 30, 1993

Stipend: $2,600

Housing: On-campus housing provided at no cost

Travel: Limited travel funds are available for participants

Eligibility: Any student who will be enrolled in an undergraduate degree
   program in Fall, 1993 is eligible. Women and members of minority groups
   are particularly encouraged to apply.

Projects: Research opportunities are available in the fields of Software
   Development Environments for Parallel Programming, Algorithm Visualiza-
   tion and Animation, and parallel genetic algorithms.

Application Deadline: March 12, 1993

Applications and Further Information: Available from your Computer
   Science Department or from

                              Herbert L. Dershem
                        Department of Computer Science
                                 Hope College
                               27 Graves Place
                            Holland, MI 49422-9000

                         Phone: (616) 394-7508  
                           FAX: (616) 394-7123
                        e-mail: dershem@cs.hope.edu

Xref: sparky comp.edu:2275 comp.software-eng:5212
From: kludge@grissom.larc.nasa.gov (Scott Dorsey)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Class Project For Software Engineering Course
Date: 5 Jan 1993 02:05:41 GMT
Organization: NASA Langley Research Center and Reptile Farm
NNTP-Posting-Host: grissom.larc.nasa.gov

How about a two part project:

A. Give the students a big piece of code.  Something huge and monolithic,
   with lots of GOTO statements, single-letter variables, memory overlays,
   and odd use of arrays (writing past array bounds to modify scalar
   variables, etc.).  You know the kind of code I mean.  Everybody has some
   somewhere (and if you don't, I'll be happy to give you some).  Assign
   groups of two or three people their own part of the program.  Tell them
   about some problems with the code, and ask them to fix them.

B. Three weeks later, when they have not accomplished anything, give them
   a definition of how the program is supposed to work and ask them to
   write one.  Again, each group will be in charge of a small portion, but
   they don't have to be the same ones (because the program structure will
   probably be completely different).

This will definitely be one of the better teaching exercises.  I see a whole
lot of folks who graduate and are shocked when they enter the real world and
see how bad some of the code out here is.  Let them know that it can be
amazingly bad, and then show them that it doesn't have to be.  Lead the
fight against cryptic code.
--scott
Newsgroups: comp.edu,comp.software-eng
From: lleone@cypress49.cray.com (Larry Leone)
Subject: Re: Class Project For Software Engineering Course
Originator: lleone@cypress49
Organization: Cray Research, Inc.
Date: 4 Jan 93 16:24:37 CST


In article <1ia3e0INN9m5@aludra.usc.edu>, karrer@aludra.usc.edu (Anthony Karrer) writes:
> At LMU we have been using a project-oriented software engineering
> class for the last ten years, and I've been teaching it for the
> last three years.  The projects that we've found to be most effective
> for a semester long course (if you expect the students to achieve
> a working product ... some courses go only through detailed design)
> are board games such as Monopoly, Risk, Othello, Backgammon, etc.
> 
> These are particularly well suited to this class because they are
> fairly well known by students or can easily be learned.  As such you
> avoid the many of the problems of ill-defined requirements specifications
> leading to heart-ache at the end of the semester.
> 

Just like real life!  Fun, well defined requirements and sufficient time.  
Yup, all my projects have been just like that :-) NOT.

Sorry I just couldn't resist.  I know you have to start somewhere.

If I were to teach a class, I would choose non-game oriented project,
say like a simple assembler, a satellite tracking program, or a software
metric tool.  I would have the students work in teams of 3-5 students.
All teams would work on the same project.  Competition between teams
makes it fun.  Students learn team work, and get to see how several
design strategies are played out.  Have team A test the results
of team B and visa-versa.  Compare all the projects in terms of code
size, speed, number of defects etc.  Good place to make use of a metric
tool.

  --Larry

-- 
Larry Leone, System Performance and Analysis		Cray Research, Inc.
Phone: (612) 683-5385					655F Lone Oak Drive
E-mail: lleone@cray.com or uunet!cray!lleone		Eagan, MN 55121
Newsgroups: comp.edu.composition
From: r0mill01@ulkyvx.louisville.edu
Subject: (Fwd: *C&CD*) What I was NOT complaining about/ (Required Courses) (18)
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 10:31:22 GMT
Organization: University of Louisville


Entry: 18
Date: Thu, 07 Jan 1993 04:27:50 EST
From: IN%"RobertRoyar@Delphi.COM" Robert Royar, (C&CD Moderator)
Message-id: <1993Jan07.042750.v7.061.1.Grendel.Lair@Cratylus>
Subject: What I was NOT complaining about/ (Required Courses) (18)
Reply-to: "Computers & Composition Digest (R. Royar)" <R0MILL01@ULKYVX.BITNET>
Organization: Cratylus Educational Software

In message <199301070337.AA01173@abel.bethel.edu> Gallus wrote
[Text of required course diiscussion quotation omitted]
>From: Gallus <galbri@abel.bethel.edu>
>Subject: RE: (Fwd: *C&CD*) Do colleges require only first-year writing? (8)

>What are you complaining about?  I have to take approximately 60 credit
>hours of so-called core curriculim.  I am not complaining when I say this,
>as I realize that by

Honestly, I wasn't complaining.

In my original post I was responding to a comment that First-year English
(FE) was the only required course that students in college must take--all
other core requirements being essentially selectable electives. My own
college experience in the mid 70s was quite different from this as I was
required to take a number of specific courses. And where I teach we require
a number of sprecific courses (including intermediate writing courses) in
which the student has either no choice or the choice is a very narrow range
of courses which each must be equivalent in terms of the total amount of
work and the types of assignments given.

 -- Robert Royar (RobertRoyar@Delphi.com) New York Institute of Technology
    "#include "Snappy.Disclaimer.And.Quotation""
                                                    - DCL-F-FILENOTFOUND

------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.edu.composition
From: r0mill01@ulkyvx.louisville.edu
Subject: (Fwd: *C&CD*) Who teaches required courses? (9)
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 23:33:22 GMT
Organization: University of Louisville


Entry: 9
Date: Tue, 05 Jan 1993 04:38:22 EST
From: IN%"RobertRoyar@Delphi.COM" Robert Royar, (C&CD Moderator)
Message-id: <1993Jan05.043822.v7.060.1.Grendel.Lair@Cratylus>
Subject: Who teaches required courses? (9)
Reply-to: "Computers & Composition Digest (R. Royar)" <R0MILL01@ULKYVX.BITNET>
Organization: Cratylus Educational Software

>From: Irvin Peckham <peckham@CWIS.UNOMAHA.EDU>
>Subject: RE: (Fwd: *C&CD*) Do colleges require only first-year writing? (8)
>Message-id: <01GT4SWPLETS8WXUIL@ulkyvx.bitnet>
>
>Robert:
>The following is a casual inquiry:  are these other required courses
>taught by adjuncts and ta's?  I assume it goes without saying that
>lower status courses are taught by lower status people--people without
>degrees.

In my undergrad experience the required (non-English and English) courses
were taught by full-time and part-time professors (of all ranks from
instructor to full professor).

At NYIT or required first-year courses are taught by adjuncts and full
timers. Some of the full timers are full professors. However, not all the
NYIT required courses are first year. Philosophy (for example) is generally
sophomore/junior year. By then the attrition rate has set in, so a few 150+
student (no lie, 150 students in one philosophy course) offered each
semester handle the load.

 -- Robert Royar (RobertRoyar@Delphi.com) New York Institute of Technology
    "All that exists is worth perishing."
                                                                  - Goethe

------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.edu.composition
From: r0mill01@ulkyvx.louisville.edu
Subject: (Fwd: *C&CD*) RE: (Fwd: *C&CD*) RE: (Fwd: *C&CD*) What I was NOT complaining about/  (Required Courses)  (18) (16) (8)
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 15:32:32 GMT
Organization: University of Louisville


Entry: 8
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 93 19:11:36 -0200
From: mccleary@cat.cce.usp.br (Leland McCleary)
Subject: RE: (Fwd: *C&CD*) RE: (Fwd: *C&CD*) What I was NOT complaining about/  (Required Courses)  (18) (16) (8)
Message-id: <9301082111.AA17574@cat.cce.usp.br>
Apparently-to:  Gallus <galbri@bernoulli.bethel.edu>
Comments: Response to posting 16 in C&CD v7.062
Reply-to: Computers & Composition Digest (R. Royar) <R0MILL01@ULKYVX.BITNET>

Sorry to be responding to form and not content, but maybe your monitor
doesn't show your posting the way mine does: almost every line bleeds over
onto another line.  If you could keep each line of your postings shorter,
about 65 characters, I think, I believe most systems won't have trouble
formatting clean-looking screens.  Just a suggestion (and forgive my
typos that I can't back up to correct).  Leland.

------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.edu.composition