Fixer Upper

FixerUpper is a PedagogicalPattern that suggests that an instructor give her students an artifact that, while having a good overall design, is broken in specific ways. The student task is to fix the artifact, say a program.

The artifact is usually larger than the student could build himself and therefore requires team work. It teaches a number of important lessons, including analysis of errors and error finding tools. The pattern can be found (with several others) at: http://csis.pace.edu/~bergin/PedPat1.3.html These patterns were workshopped at EuroPlop 2000. -- JoeBergin

I believe the term comes from RealEstate?: A FixerUpper is a house only marginally better than a ruin. -- OleAndersen

Like in the first Simpsons Hallowe'en special, where they buy the haunted house, and just as Marge wants to leave, Homer says:

Homer: It's only natural that there be a few things wrong with an old house like this; it's a fixer-upper!

-- SeanPalmer

This approach is used quite a bit in some of IBM's Websphere developer training (and possibly others). While allowing developers to cover a large topic area in a one-week course, it runs the risk of leaving developers unable to use their training to start a project from scratch.