Re: HP Software

[Ed Wilds <EHSADM3%UCONNVM.bitnet@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu>]

On Wed, 2 Feb 94 13:14:23 -0600 Patrick D. Beyer said:
>My two cents on hiring a student to do this is that you can get some
>really good results from this. You get a good piece of code that does
>what you want plus you are giving a student the opportunity to get some
>experience doing real world programming..... the only problem is if you
>get that one brilliant student who wants to do a good job but ends up
>over engineering your software and adding too many bells and whistles...

Patrick:
  You can eliminate over engineering, and too many bells and whistles by
keeping strict oversight on the project.  I require all my students to present
a fully operational demo before any program is used.  We load the software
with fictitious data and I make them produce the output I want.  If something
isn't there I send them back to the drawing board to add it and if they added
too much I have them remove it.  We have not developed alot of inhouse software
but everyone seems to like what we have.  One thing I have done to eliminate
the over engineering was to talk to the student and explain that not everyone
in the office understood computers as well as they did.  This generally
builds their ego and make the programs more user friendly.

Ed Wilds
RSO, The University of Connecticut