Real-world program design in CS2
Samuel A. Rebelsky, Clif Flynt · 2000
Recent curricular recommendations (e.g., [7,9]) encourage the early and regular use of significant group projects in the introductory computer science sequence. In this paper, we report on a group project that we used in two courses during the second half of the semester. Rather than having each group work on the same project (or even individual projects), the groups build parts of a larger project: a distributed auction system to be used by art shows at conventions. Students reacted quite positively to the experience, in spite of reporting that they spent upwards of twenty hours on the project in many weeks. Students also learned important software design principles from experience.