Makes for interesting reading, especially in the light of lab-centric activities that one reads about from across the country
/sankarshan <http://www.itworld.com/open-source/81578/a-peek-carnegie-mellons-open-source-lab> But students aren't simply learning how to program and just happening to use FOSS tools. Some are actively working on FOSS projects. According to Lehman, at least one programming class short-circuits a "build it from scratch" approach for the application they'll work on by instead starting with an open source project and expanding it. The open source code is a base, he said, and it's representative of the way most (new) developers will work in the real world. How often does a wet-behind-the-ears software developer on her first job get to start writing an application from scratch, after all? Plus, Lehman added, it helps the students learn to work together on a team. The software developed in class isn't done with the expectation that the students will contribute code back to the project but, Lehman said, "It does happen." _______________________________________________ Users mailing list [email protected] http://lists.dgplug.org/listinfo.cgi/users-dgplug.org
