A Case for Software Engineering

The paper argues for the use of the "case study" approach to educating and training software engineers. After discussing problems in software engineering education and introducing the fundamentals of case study teaching, the paper describes a project to develop a comprehensive and complete case study, called the DigitalHome (DH) system, which involves the development of "smart house" technology by a national retail chain serving the needs of home owners. Thus far the following has been developed: marketing documents, project launch material, a project plan, an SRS, and a set of scene-setting and problem-solving scenarios. The case study will eventually consist of a complete set of life-cycle artifacts, a realistic description of the people and events that are part of the DH development, and a set of exercises that are designed to involve students in the solutions of software engineering problems associated with the DH development.