- A great example of software engineering failure is the Denver Airport Computerized Baggage Handling Software.
- There are many descriptions of it online like this NY Times article:
- Use recently rolled-out video games that need a lot of patches as examples of software engineering problems, like Assassin’s Creed Unity which launched in 2014, to promote understanding of the important software development topics.
- When the Assassins Creed Unity software was originally launched in 2014, a lot of network issues and bugs required many patches to be issued.
- You can share this Kotaku blog entry describing some of the bugs as a reading for students and/or to spark a discussion:
- When the Assassins Creed Unity software was originally launched in 2014, a lot of network issues and bugs required many patches to be issued.
- Search for examples that would or could directly involve your students.
- Location based examples or one’s that impact activities and items they engage with everyday allow students to really connect to the story.
- There are great examples in the book: Java Software Solutions: Foundations of Program Design by Lewis and Loftus
- Use a recent example from the news or popular culture to discuss:
- the importance of debugging, software design, and testing.
- how online software distribution gives software engineers the potential to patch buggy versions of code.
- does the advent of the web allow unfinished software to be released, or is unfinished software released due to increasing complexity (e.g. a game today requires hundreds of thousands of lines of code; ten years ago, not so much)?
- This is a great question for a lively debate.