Author(s)

Z. Mahmood

Abstract

Many institutions of higher education now provide specialist courses in Software Engineering (SE). The primary objective is to produce fully qualified Software Engineers. Whereas the teaching of the theoretical content is generally well managed, these courses often lack two of the vital components of SE: practical experience of programming-in-the-large (PIL) and emphasis on quality and professionalism. SE courses do provide opportunities for team work and group projects but team size and software projects are usually so small that students are unable to fully appreciate the problems and issues relating to SE It is thus imperative that a much greater emphasis is placed on PIL as well as programming-in-the- many (PIM). This paper suggests that students should be given opportunities to develop large and complex software products by working in grou

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