Read before you write

This paper describes and advocates a focused approach to using inspections of software artifacts as an active learning technique in software engineering education. A central thesis is that one must “learn to read before they write” that is, you should read and study an existing software artifact, before you develop one. There is discussion of how software artifacts and supporting instructional materials from a Digital Home case study project can be used to support and guide software inspection exercises. These inspection exercises are designed to introduce students to realistic software engineering artifacts and involve them in rigorous examination of their contents. Instances of the use of software inspections to teach software engineering are described and analyzed: the experiences of students and instructors, what worked and what did not, and how this influenced the cases study project. The authors also outline a set of topics and courses in which software inspections might be used as a teaching tool throughout a computing curriculum.