CS-480_Senior Seminar
               Study questions for Software Certification Debate
                                   Fall '02
                                 James Rogers

1. What is Software Engineering? How is it different from Computer Programming?
How is it different from Civil Engineering?

2. What does this Software Certification initiative seek to certify?

3. What happens if a Certified Software Development Professional produces bad
   software?

4. What are the constituencies that Tripp believes will benefit from Software
   Certification? How does he expect them to benefit?

5. According to Tripp, "The CSDP . . . encourages individuals to draw from a
   broad base of software knowledge." Kolawa, in contrast, does not believe the
   knowledge base of the software professional is the problem.  What does he
   believe the problem to be? Are these two points of view necessarily
   incompatible? 


6. Kolawa claims that CDSP will stifle innovation. How?


7. Kolawa characterizes the CDSP as "an unnecessary proof that developers have

   not forgotten the fundamentals they have already learned in an accredited
   computer science program." From this perspective, if the knowledge base of
   software professionals is deficient, who is to blame? But he also claims
   that, in his experience, the "most brilliant" programmers usually "did not
   develop their talent by completing whatever set of courses a university
   committee deemed important."  In that case, if the knowledge base of
   software professionals is deficient, who is to blame? How is one to tell? 


8. What, in Kolawa's view, distinguishes computer science from "true sciences"?
   Does he have it right? As Kolawa notes, Math and Physics do not, as
   disciplines, have certification programs. Where do certification programs
   exist? 

  9. Given the short bio at the end of each article (and the add from the back
     of another issue of Computer) how do you think their professional roles
     have influenced Tripp and Kolawa's perspectives on this issue?