Instilling a defect prevention philosophy [software engineering education]

In software, teaching a programming language and how to compile and execute programs allows people to write programs immediately. Very likely, such programs will require considerable debugging. Errors and unit debugging are just an expected and integral part of programming. However, people with the right education and training need not unit debug their software any more than people need to look at the keys when they type. Serious programming begins only with formal methods, more explicit design, and verification from specifications. A proven software development process, Cleanroom Software Engineering, adds engineering rigor to the process and focuses on defect prevention and statistical quality control. Cleanroom has historically produced software with significantly superior quality and improved productivity. As a result, the University of Utah offers a new undergraduate course in Cleanroom Software Engineering. The course instills a defect-prevention, systematic/engineering philosophy in the students. This paper contains some introductory information on Cleanroom Software Engineering and explains how its principles are taught and enforced in the classroom.