Implementation of Programming Standards in a Computer Science Department
by Lionel E. Deimel and Mark Pozefsky

In my other paper with Mark Pozefsky, we argued the need for programming standards in a computer science department, drawing on our experience in the Computer Science Department at North Carolina State University. In this paper, another one from 1979, we addressed the question of how standards can be implemented in a computer science department, and we did so at a time when the growth in enrollments in computer science courses was explosive. Departmental standards are relatively easy to promulgate if the faculty can agree on them, of course, but it was less clear how they could be enforced at a time when sections of introductory programming courses were attended by a hundred or more students. Our paper describes how student graders were trained systematically to evaluate student program. It also enumerates some of the benefits we hoped to see from our standards program. I don’t think anyone ever investigated the degree to which the benefits were actually realized. I know that Mark and I didn’t.

This rather brief paper was presented was presented at a Southeast Regional ACM conference (citation).

— LED, 3/27/2008