I was really impressed by this article. The system of designing a program sounds like it would really be effective and educational. While it might not be a feasible procedure for larger projects, doing on a smaller scale would let the techniques used in a group to carry over into designing on one's own.

The most important part of going though a role playing design interaction like the one described in the paper is only useful if the procedure carries over into designing by oneself. It's important when designing to step through the program in the same way as the group does in this paper. Creating a simulated run of the program can lead to a better understanding of the mechanisms involved and where the design is weak.

This raises the larger issue of how to teach design. Once a good design has been arrived at, implementation is just a matter of translating that design into code; designing is the "skill" behind a program. Giving design patterns is one step towards teaching design, but perhaps more direction could be given to the design process. Teaching more design techniques would allow students to explore more methods which would let the student discover the design method which works best for him.

Teaching design is the most important focus of cs15. Perhaps there are more ways to teach design which would reach a greater number of students.