Instructor: P.
Hatcher
Office: Kingsbury N215B
E-mail:
hatcher@unh.edu
Office Hours:
Mon 10:30-11am, Wed 9:30-11am, Fri 10:30-11am,
or by appointment (send e-mail to request an appointment).
Teaching Assistant: Frank Kreimendahl
Office: Kingsbury W237
E-mail:
fri2@unh.edu
Office Hours: Tue 1-2pm, Thur 2-4pm.
Recitation: Wednesdays, 8:10-9:30am, Kingsbury N343
Laboratory: Section 01, Fridays, 8:10-9am, Kingsbury N218
Laboratory: Section 02, Fridays, 9:10-10am, Kingsbury N218
The lectures for this course will be presented via YouTube videos. My goal for the lectures is to give the impression that I am working just with you, one-to-one. The videos will be low-key and low-tech. Me just explaining the concepts to you.
The class will meet in person once per week for recitation and once per week for lab. The schedule below indicates which videos you need to watch for each week. Of course, it is critical you follow this schedule and bring up for discussion any questions that arise from the lectures. This style of course provides you more freedom over your time, but places more responsibility on you to manage that time.
We will use Piazza so you can bring up your questions in real time. You should receive an invitation to join the Piazza class for CS520. If you do not receive an invitation, please contact me.
The prerequisite for this course is CS515.
The key goals for the course are to understand program and data representation, to become familiar with assembly language, machine language and C programming, to understand the impact on software of basic computer architecture concepts such as the memory hierarchy, and to study fundamental system software such as assemblers and linkers. There is also a focus on multithreaded programming.
I was kind of freaked out when I realized that there are people graduating with CS degrees who'd never written C. They started in Java and they stayed there. That just seemed bizarre and wrong. —Jamie Zawinski, early Netscape/Mozilla developer, quoted in Coders at Work: Reflections on the Craft of Programming by Peter Seibel.
I see people that are really smart—I would say they're good programmers—but say they only know Java. The way they think about solving things is always within the space they know. They don't think end-to-end as much. I think it is really important to know the whole stack even if you don't operate within the whole stack. … In practice, nothing works. There are all these beautiful abstractions that are backed by sh*t. The implementation of libraries that look like they could be beautiful are sh*t. And so if you're the one responsible for the cost of buying servers, or reliability—if you're on call for pages—it helps to actually know what's going on under the covers and not trust everyone else's libraries, and code, and interfaces. —Brad Fitzpatrick, creator of Livejournal, quoted in Coders at Work: Reflections on the Craft of Programming by Peter Seibel.
The University is committed to providing students with documented disabilities equal access to all university programs and facilities. If you think you have a disability requiring accommodations, you must register with Disability Services for Students (DSS). Contact DSS at (603) 862-2607 or visit them in MUB 118. If you have received Accommodation Letters for this course from DSS, please provide me with that information privately so that we can review those accommodations.
Recitation sessions are 80 minutes long and will be held on Wednesdays 8:10am-9:30am in Parsons NB22. Homework will be assigned for each recitation, but it will not be graded. You should try to work these problems prior to coming to recitation, however.
Laboratory sessions are 50 minutes long and will be held on Fridays in Kingsbury N218. Section 01 meets 8:10-9am. Section 02 meets 9:10-10am. Because the class is full, you will need to attend the lab that you are registered for.
Each programming assignment will have two labs associated with it. In general, the purpose of the labs is to encourage you to start the assignments early, and work on them steadily. It is very difficult to do the programming assignments in this course at the last minute.
Laboratory grades will be based upon attendance and correctness of your laboratory submission. If you attend all of the lab, you will receive 50% of the lab points, with the other 50% being awarded based upon the correctness of your submission. If you do not attend, then your grade will be based only upon the correctness of your submission. For example, if you attend all of the lab and you get 70% of the assigned functionality correct, then you will receive an 85% for the lab. But, if you do not attend lab and you get 70% of the functionality, then you will receive a grade of 70% for the lab.
Labs are due no later than 8am the day after the lab (i.e. at 8am on Saturday). No late submissions will be accepted for labs.
The programming assignments are (with tentative due dates):
The programming assignments must be done in C. We will compile your lab and program submissions using gcc with these flags: -g -Wall -std=c99. Please test using these flags.
Each programming assignment will be worth 100 points. All programming assignments are due on a Sunday. There is a grace period until 8am on Monday when no late penalty will be assigned. Assignments submitted between 8am on Monday and 8am on Tuesday will be charged a 10% late penalty. Assignments submitted between 8am on Tuesday and 8am on Wednesday will be charged a 30% late penalty. No assignments will be accepted after 8am on Wednesday.
The grading of programming assignments will be based primarily upon demonstrated correct functionality. That is, you will be awarded points for what your program actually does. Some test cases may be public but others will be hidden, so careful testing will be required.
Points will be deducted from your programming assignment grade if your work is not adequately documented and structured. You must follow the following guidelines:
In addition, lines should not exceed 80 characters when printed using a tabstop width of 8. It is best to not put tabs in your files. Have your editor automatically expand tabs into spaces. It is also best to use a small indentation amount, like 2.
If you have any questions about these rules for program layout, see me in advance, not after your first program submission.
The midterm will be on Wednesday March 6. The midterm is closed book and notes.
The final exam will be 8-10am on Friday May 10 in Ham Smith 216. The final exam will be comprehensive. The final exam is closed book and notes.
Students receiving at least 55% of the course points are guaranteed at least a D-. Students receiving at least 65% of the course points are guaranteed at least a C-. Students receiving at least 75% of the course points are guaranteed at least a B-. Students receiving at least 85% of the course points are guaranteed at least an A-.
On reserve in the Kingsbury library:
The purchase of this book is not required, so the local bookstores will not have it. However, if you want your own copy, they are readily available from on-line retailers.
You might also want to consult a C reference. My favorite is C: A Reference Manual by Harbison and Steele.
Also you can get on-line access to C references via the UNH library's license for Safari Tech Books. See the website for the Kingsbury Library for more information. Once in Safari, search for "Programming in C".
Information about the Intel IA-32 architecture is available here. These three manuals will be the most useful:
The manual for the GNU assembler may also be useful. (In particular, be aware that the syntax used by Intel differs from that used by default by the GNU assembler. See the relevant section of the GNU assembler manual.)
You may need to use gdb to debug both C code and Intel assembly code. The GNU manual for gdb is here. To debug at the assembly language level, read about the stepi/nexti commands, how to display registers, and how to use the break command with an address.
If you are serious about building your software development skills, I heartily recommend Coders at Work: Reflections on the Craft of Programming by Peter Seibel. The book contains interviews with fifteen master programmers.
Note that this "no collaboration" policy does not distinguish between the "giver" and the "taker". I consider both parties equally guilty.
In addition, submitting programs that are based upon code retrieved from Internet sources is also explicitly forbidden and will be considered "cheating".
Be aware that I use tools for automatic plagiarism detection that analyze both current and prior-year assignment submissions.
Because so much of your course grade is based upon the programming assignments, I will treat cases of cheating severely. If caught cheating on an assignment, you can expect to (at least) receive a failing grade for the course.
In addition, of course, collaboration is also not allowed on the midterm exam or the final exam.
Comments and questions should be directed to hatcher@unh.edu