Syllabus: Spring 2008
CSSE 332 – Operating Systems

C Programming Language, Second Edition, by Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie

Paperback: 274 pages
Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR; 2 edition (March 22, 1988)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0131103628
ISBN-13: 978-0131103627

This book, known by most computer scientists simply by the authors' initials K&R, is a classic reference. We won’t refer directly to this book in the course, but if you will be using C later in your career, either as a student or a professional, we strongly encourage you to add this reference to your personal library. (All CS, SE, and CPE students will use C in later courses. Many other majors will also encounter courses where C is required.)

Safari Books Online – On-line access to C (and other) books through the Rose-Hulman library

On-line: http://proquest.safaribooksonline.com/?uicode=rosehulman/

On-line books that may be helpful for CSSE 332 include:

Course Materials

We’ll use Angel to post grades, materials that require restricted access (like homework solutions), and links to the course schedule, assignment descriptions, slides, quizzes, and handouts. Please note the emphasis on links. All these linked materials are available via any of the several mechanisms for accessing Public AFS data. Thus, you can get to the majority of course materials:

• by web browser from http://www.rose-hulman.edu/class/cs/csse332/0708c,
• by AFS from /class/cs/csse332/0708c, and
• by addiator, again at /class/cs/csse332/0708c.

Learning Outcomes

Students who successfully complete this course should be able to:

1. Explain the objectives and functions of modern operating systems.
2. Describe how operating systems have evolved over time from primitive batch systems to sophisticated multiuser systems.
3. Analyze the tradeoffs inherent in operating system design.
4. Explain the hardware support necessary to implement protection mechanisms in operating systems.
5. Analyze the performance of preemptive and non-preemptive scheduling algorithms.
6. Explain how processes are created, managed and deleted by operating systems.
7. Explain the need for process synchronization and demonstrate the proper use of common synchronization techniques.
8. Explain memory hierarchy, including virtual memory, caching, paging and segmentation, and analyze memory performance and cost-performance tradeoffs.
9. Explain the different approaches to file organization and their strengths and weaknesses.
10. Design, implement, test, and debug software using a high-level language that uses explicit pointers, as well as explicit static and dynamic memory allocation.

Homework and Projects

When we give a reading assignment, we seriously expect you to read it. In-class discussions will assume that you have done the reading and understood the “easy stuff” before class. You may of course ask about any details that you do not understand. We strongly believe that reading the textbook will help you. You may be able to “get by” without reading the text. But did you come to Rose to “get by” or to be the best?

We will assign a number of programming problems. Some of these problems will help you explore the details of real-world operating systems by implementing selected parts of an operating system. We anticipate that you will spend some time working on these assignments. Mastery of the concepts involved with these assignments is required in order to excel in the course. Some of these assignments will be done in groups, while others will be done individually.

Your solutions to programming problems should be well-designed and well-documented. We will suggest working on some programming problems with another person; however we will designate some problems as individual assignments.

We will also assign a number of in-class exercises as well as homework problems and quizzes. Some of these exercises will be done individually, while others will be done in groups. Both the individual and group exercises will contribute to your final grade for the course.

Grading

We plan to use the weighting scheme shown in the table below when assigning final grades.

Criteria	Weight
In-class Quizzes	10%
Homework and Programming Problems	25%
Major Team Project(s)	20%
Exam 1	15%
Exam 2	15%
Final Exam	15%

Final grades are contingent on the following:

• You must complete the major team project(s) to pass the course.
• You must have a passing average on the exams to pass the course.
• Attendance is required, as detailed below.

Letter Grades

We will do our best to conform to the Rose-Hulman definition of the various grades, as described in the Academic Rules and Procedures. Note in particular that the phrase ”thorough competence to do excellent work“ appears there in the description of the “B” grade, and it further states that “B” and “B+” will not be given for mere compliance with the minimum essential standards of the course.

We will not grade on a curve, so every student could earn an “A”. But it will require significant effort to do so.

Citizenship Counts!

We may adjust your overall average up or down by up to 5 points, based on your citizenship in the CSSE 332 learning community. This includes attendance, promptness, preparation for class, positive participation in class, constructive partnership in pair and group assignments, timely completion of various surveys, and peer evaluation of other students’ code and of your team members for group projects.

The in-class time in this course constitutes an important learning experience. After two unexcused absences, you must discuss continuation of the course with the instructor. Three unexcused absences will result in failure of the course.

Late Policy

Homework and programming problems must be turned in on time if you want credit for them. No credit will be given for late work except in extreme circumstances.

Email

We usually check our email several times per day (including most evenings), and we do our best to respond quickly. It is a good way to get answers to simple questions. We expect you to check your email daily (not necessarily on weekends, although even that is not a bad idea). When we send mail to you, we will use your Rose-Hulman address. If you do not currently read mail that is sent to that address, please have it forwarded to wherever you read mail.

When you send course-related email to us, please begin the Subject: line with CSSE 332:, so that we can quickly pick it out from among the dozens of daily email messages that we receive. If you have an urgent CSSE 332 question, you can email the entire course staff (instructors and TAs) by sending to csse332-staff@rose-hulman.edu.

Electronic Distraction Policy

We do our best to keep class interactive. But we recognize that sometimes it is hard as a student to stay focused on the class. With laptops in class, there are many more ways to become distracted. Unfortunately these distractions are much more pernicious, since it is very easy to get drawn into things like IM conversations or RSS feeds.

We strongly encourage you to turn off IM and email software and only use other software for things directly related to class. If you choose to use non-class-related software during class, then you must sit in the back row. Doing so will prevent your classmates from being distracted by what is on your screen.

Integrity

Recall the Institute policy on academic misconduct:

“Rose-Hulman expects its students to be responsible adults and to behave at all times with honor and integrity.”

Exams and homework will be done on an individual basis. The simple rule of thumb for individual work is:

Never give or use someone else’s code or written answers.

Such exchanges are definitely cheating and not cooperation. The departmental statement on academic honesty has more detailed advice.

We encourage you to discuss the problems and general approaches to solving them with other students. However, when it comes to writing code, it should be your own work (or the work of your group if it is a group or partner assignment). If you are having trouble understanding how some library code works or pinning down a run-time or logic error in your program, by all means talk to someone about it.

If you use someone else’s ideas in your solution (or any other work that you do anywhere), you have to:

• give credit to that person in the comment section of your program, and
• be sure that you understand it as well as if it were your own.

If you are ever in doubt about whether some specific situation violates the policy, the best approach is to discuss it with your instructor beforehand. This is a very serious matter that we do not take lightly; nor should you.

In general, you should not look at another student’s code to get ideas of how to write your own code. Beginning the process of producing your own solution with an electronic copy of work done by other students is never appropriate.

Plagiarism or cheating will result in a negative score (i.e., less than zero) for the assignment or exam. Egregious cases will result in a grade of “F” for the course. More importantly, such dishonesty steals your own self-esteem. So don’t cheat.

Developed by Delvin Defoe and Laurence Merkle.