Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 21:43:24 GMT Server: NCSA/1.5 Content-type: text/html Computer Science 410 --- Spring 1996

Computer Science 410 - Spring 1996

Computer Science Department, Boston University

Current information

Homework: (and its solution, after the submission date), in the directory ~cs410/gacs/handout.

Useful pointers

The Unix Reference Desk
Perl Manual
More on Perl
Instructor:Peter Gacs, Email: gacs@cs.bu.edu, Phone: 353-2015, Office: MCS 277
Office hours: Mon 3:00-4:30, Wed 12:30-2:00

Time: Mon, Wed, Fri 2-3, Place: MCS B33

Texts

Required: Recommended:

Description

The course teaches the use of the facilities of the Unix operating system in the writing of application programs. General principles of operating system design will be discussed only as much as necessary for this purpose. We will be programming in a shell, in the Perl language and C. The topics include the file system, terminal I/O, process management and interprocess communication. We will concentrate on the specific system available (Solaris) but the concepts and techniques learned will be applicable to other Unix versions and even other operating systems. Knowledge of the C programming language and use of the Unix system to edit, build and execute programs is a prerequisite.

Homework

Weekly programming assignments due generally Sunday evenings, at 8pm by e-mail. The Subject line of the message must contain the word 410HW. The credit given for the homework decreases by 10% every hour after 8pm. A student can get at most one exception for not submitting homework on time.

Exams

Only a single double-sided sheet of handwritten notes ("crib-sheet") is allowed. The final exam covers the whole material.

Grading

Homework makes up 60% of the grade, with 15% left to the midterm and final examination each and 10% left to reward active class participation. An Incomplete grade will only be given in exceptional circumstances.

Cooperation

Cooperation is recommended in understanding various concepts and system features. But the actual programming and debugging of the homework must be wholly individual work. Plagiarism is often easy to discover. The University requires me to forward every suspected case of plagiarism to the appropriate committees.

Tentative timetable

Jan 17 - : basic concepts from Kernighan-Pyke
Feb 7 - : Shell-Perl programming
March 1 - : (Start using C, too) I/O, files and directories
March 15 - : creating and connecting processes
March 20: Midterm (material up to but excluding "exec")
March 29 -: signals, terminals, job control
April 12 -: sockets, tba