Reviewing Canadian CompSci Schools: Who's Teaching Best Practices? Part II

In the post, I set out to test a hypothesis that the majority of computer science schools in Ontario were not teaching these best practices, focusing instead on the "worst practices" that are contributing to the industry's significant problem in meeting targets like cost, scope, schedule and satisfaction - something I collectively refer to as "BDUF/waterfall" or "Big Design Up Front / waterfall" processes, which define the prevailing view of how software should be developed.

I tested the hypothesis by performing a rough comparative analysis of the course calendars from each school - in much the same way a prospective student might when shopping around for a school to attend.  Unsurprisingly, I found my hypothesis held true with only four Ontario schools out of sixteen teaching best practices courses.

A Review of Canadian CompSci Schools

Naturally, I wanted to extend this analysis to the rest of Canada, so I set about gathering and sifting through twenty-five course calendars for schools from the Pacific to the Atlantic.  Below is the summary of my findings (click to enlarge).   As with the previous review, my raw research notes can be found via a shared Google Notebook I've created.

As with the previous iteration, this table illustrates three significant points of comparison between the schools:

1. Does the CS department offer a course exclusively in the best practice(s) ?
2. Does the CS department offer a course that teaches a best practice as a constituent component of a course ?
3. How many "software engineering" vs. "best practices" courses are required for a degree (H.BSc.)

With respect to the first point, cells are highlighted in orange, with contiguous "blocks" aggregated together with a border to indicate multiple practices that are taught in a single course - there are some clarifications for certain schools that I'll explain below.  With respect to the second point, cells are highlighted in blue.

I've also added two new comparison columns to break down the summaries: Object Oriented Design / UML, to indicate those courses that are definitive in the discipline, and Requirements Engineering to highlight this "bad practice", which I previously assimilated as part of BDUF/waterfall.

Highlights

As with the Ontario analysis, best practices aren't a uniform part of computer science curriculums across Canada:

• Of all practices, Object Oriented Development and Design Patterns make up the bulk of topic offerings for almost half the departments analyzed;
• Agile/lean/iterative practices are still in the minority, being offered by only six schools (U of Alberta, U of Calgary, U of Manitoba, McGill, Memorial University and Saint Francis Xavier), three of which are in a dedicated course offering (U of Alberta, U of Calgary and U of Manitoba), and of these only two (2) or 8% are degree requirements (Alberta and Manitoba);
• Refactoring is only offered by four schools (U of Alberta, U of Saskatchewan, U of Manitoba and McGill), three of which make it a part of a dedicated best practice course.  Of these schools, only two (2) offer courses that are within degree requirements.
• Agile Requirements are pretty much unheard of, being offered only by two schools (U of Alberta and McGill), one of which is within core degree requirements.
• BDUF/Waterfall processes are overwhelmingly pervasive, comprising the majority of "software engineering" course offerings and degree requirements.

Exemplary Schools

As with Ontario, there are a few schools in Canada that stand out from the miasma with some top-notch offerings that others would do well to emulate - if you or someone you know is interested in taking Computer Science, these are schools to include in your shortlist:

University of Alberta @ Edmonton

• CMPUT 301 Introduction to Software Engineering:  This course is a clear winner that rivals its Ontario competition if only because the modules are targeted at 5/6 best practices backed up by recognizable industry names.  I was immediately impressed that the work of Mike Cohn on agile requirements gathering was specifically mentioned.  Only criticism: No TDD - but that's minor considering how much else is in the curriculum.
• CMPUT 201 Practical Programming Methodology:  This course caught my attention because it takes a pragmatic approach to imparting professional skills to students.  One quote in particular blew me away: "Like the best carpenters and artists, the best programmers combine both a solid theoretical foundation with "best practices" and tools refined by years of experience... CMPUT 201 is a "doing art" and not an "art appreciation" course; it requires hands-on, active learning. For a programmer, the end product is a complete, working program."
  
  A definite winner, even though the course substance isn't totally within the realm of what I define as best practices.

University of Calgary

• Software Engineering 515 Agile Software Engineering:  While there wasn't a more detailed course outline, this non-required course stands out as a unique, dedicated offering.  Unfortunately, the prevailing thinking in the department is definitely biased toward BDUF/waterfall, as evidenced by the remaining courses.

University of Manitoba

• COMP 3350 Software Engineering:  This degree core requirement course offering is on-par with Alberta's CMPUT 301, covering test driven development, refactoring, design patterns and a gentle introduction to "appropriate agile processes" for a team project.  The textbook, Sustainable Software Development - An Agile Perspective by Kevin Tate is worth having on the bookshelf and hits all the right notes.
  
  I really liked how this course tied in TDD - even if it is missing the agile requirements gathering that Alberta's course has.
• Unfortunately, all the good of COMP 3350 may be totally undone by COMP 4050 Project Management which emphasizes a litany of worst practices, including project definition using PERT, Gantt charts and critical path analysis.  I say unfortunate because 4050 is also a core required course for the software engineering stream.

McGill - Quebec

• COMP 303 Software Development:  The sole exemplary offering from La Belle Province of best practices follows the formula set by U of Alberta, U of Calgary and U of Manitoba with this required course for CompSci/Software Engineers.  Design patterns, refactoring, unit testing and design-by-contract and top-notch OOD practices (eg. separation of concerns) are all covered.  While the required text is Java-biased, it does cover design patterns and using the JUnit unit test suite.
• COMP 304B Object Oriented Design:  While not a required course, this should be taken in conjunction with COMP 303 as it focuses exclusively on OO design fundamentals, including Gang of Four design patterns, which incidentally, is also a required text for the course.  Unit testing with Python is also done - a little weird, but it's good to stretch the mind beyond the C/C++/Java curly-brace languages.
• COMP 335 Software Engineering Methods:  Another course that teaches an agile/incremental process for guiding software projects - this one focusing on eXtreme Programming along with unit testing, teamwork and project scoping.  The required text isn't that great, but hopefully the profs can relate the material well enough to avoid relying on it.  Again, since this isn't a required course, it would be good to take along with the two previously mentioned courses to limit the damage done by other BDUF/waterfall offerings.

Honourable Mentions

University of British Columbia

• CMPT 275-4 Software Engineering:  Covers unit testing and OO analysis, which unfortunately get mired in some BDUF/waterfall practices.  It earns an Honourable Mention because of the texts in its recommended book list:  The Mythical Man Month by Fred P. Brooks, Professional Software Development and Code Complete by Steve McConnell.  While I disagree with Steve on a lot of points, he's a recognized name in the industry that students should be aware of - and Fred Brooks?  Obviously.
• CMPT 475-3 Software Engineering II:  Designed to pick up where 275-4 left off, this one I mention again because the course text gives me hope that the course isn't as bad as I think it is:  Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering, by Robert L. Glass.

Bishop's University - Quebec

• CSC328 - Object-oriented Software Construction:  This course has a lot of potential from the outline to expand to cover a lot of best practices.  In its current incarnation only design patterns and UML are covered, but it does so through coding in four OO languages:  C++, Smalltalk, Eiffel and Java.  Of these, Smalltalk and Eiffel have a long pedigree of spawning best practices like test driven development, refactoring, etc.

Memorial University - Newfoundland & Labrador

• COMP 3716 Software Methodology:  Covers iterative software development with an eye toward comparing it critically with traditional BDUF/waterfall processes - this is rather unique across the board - alongside design patterns and UML.  The course text isn't the best, but the author, Craig Larman, is a recognized name in the industry in pro-agile circles.
• COMP 3718 Programming in the Small:  This course stuck out to me from its title as it implied an attention to detail - and that pretty much sums it up.  Backed by Brian Kernighan and Rob Pike's book, The Practice of Programming, this course looks to impart some fundamental skills.  Not so much "best practice" as de facto rules of thumb that contribute to professionalism.  Should be a required course!

Acadia University - Nova Scotia

• COMP 3783 Advanced Object Oriented Application Development with Smalltalk:  Smalltalk didn't win the war of OOD language supremacy - that went to Java and C# - however, a great deal of work in best practices was done using Smalltalk, and for that reason I recommend this course over the identical offering COMP 3773 which focuses on C++ and is required.

Personal Software Process

A few schools in my analysis have been promoting Watts Humphrey's PSP as part of their software engineering stream.  Far from being about personal development as a developer or a better way to manage small projects, PSS is a forerunner component to Team Software Process and the Capability Maturity Model (CMM), each of which emphasize the notion of coercing agile tenets within a heavy process framework.  I recommend avoiding any PSP offering as its adoption is near zero in the industry and is predicated on the notion of increased up-front planning yielding a better product without a customer feedback loop.

Conclusions

Across both the Ontario and Canadian school analyses, while a complete offering of best practices is still not supported by the majority of computer science departments, the ones that do are leading the way with some top-notch efforts which go a significant way toward putting the lie to the naysayers who often trumpet that these efforts "can't be done" and "don't believe" in their worth.

Unfortunately, the majority view of BDUF/waterfall practices continues to hold sway and degree required courses vary wildly without consistency, rhyme or reason:  Some departments require six software engineering courses, others two and still yet others none.  In terms of best practice courses, the number drops dramatically with the norm being zero.

As with the Ontario analysis, there are a myriad of potential reasons for these discrepancies which can be attributed to each school setting their own curriculum.  While this is their prerogative, it's unfortunate that there isn't even an accepted baseline to work against that promotes best practices. 

Additionally, the same discrepancy between "computer science" and "software engineering" stratifies who's required to learn best practices - and this doesn't help graduates at all.

In sum, there's still more work to be done to promote best practices that can be affected by business (who can demand it from schools) and by students themselves to pressure their departments to improve their offerings.  I've listed four schools who can serve as a starting point - I'd love to see four more join the list in four years!

Let me know your thoughts and observations.