Synopsis of Presentation

Abstract

Professor Buhr presented the main points in his paper, tied them into some of the other presentations at the Workshop, and provided some of the background and rationale for the ideas presented in his paper. Among the points he made in his presentation were the following:

• Agreement with Al Pietrasanta on the difficulty of teaching software engineering to practitioners. Seems to be a matter of mindset, found even in young programmers after the first few courses.

• Paper describes an approach, Software CAD, to overcoming the mindset. Professor Buhr has been experimenting with the approach in his teaching.

• A key problem is the “sequential mindset” that stems from first introducing students to older, sequential languages. This leads to “program carpenters” who think only in terms of monolithic, sequential programs that have little or no significant architectural context.

• The essence of Professor Buhr’s approach is to introduce students at an early stage to an architectural way of viewing software which is compatible with both sequential and concurrent models of computing.

• Another important stumbling block is the difficulty of thinking about concurrent programs on the basis of sequential concepts only.