Lazyweb, a question: let's say that you could teach a "cultural anthropology" type of course about computing to first year students, to prepare them for the codebases, communities, patterns and software philosophies of the programming world. You've got about ten weeks to run it. What would you teach in that course and why?
(RTs appreciated for reach.)
@mhoye I want to take it, not teach it. 
I suppose a bit on the evolution of source management would be neat.
Go over various philosophies towards testing and documentation. Bias this towards DOING THEM.
How to look through a codebase and extract information about the culture by identifying things about the code over time, making like... Code Strata. But first I'd have to lean to do that myself.
mhoye
the_wiggler