PHILOSOPHY OF COURSE

COP 4610L is currently titled Operating Systems Lab. However, that title reflects only part of what we do. As with all courses, this one has evolved in the almost three years since it was first conceived. The course now focuses on Enterprise Systems; in fact, all prior offerings have also emphasized such concepts.

What has become clear to us is that the demands of this course do not lend well to its being taught in a laboratory setting, and especially not to its being taught in a 3-hour block. As a consequence, we have altered the format to two 75 minute lecture classes for fall 2002, and will do so in all future offerings. The course will be taught in a multimedia classroom, as demonstrations of relevant technologies are still critical to the presentation of these concepts, especially when demonstrating client-server, n-tier and peer-to-peer systems.

You should also be aware that this course will demonstrate its concepts using various Java APIs. We do this because of the simplicity in which otherwise illusive concepts can be implemented in Java. The consequence for all of you is that you must sharpen your skills in Java. We will not teach elementary principles in object-oriented programming or the ways these concepts are implemented in Java. This is a prerequisite to your registering for COP4610. Similarly, you must have taken COP3503 and EEL4882 or COP 4600. From COP3503, we will expect you to understand standard abstract data types (stacks, queues, trees, priority ordered trees, graphs), data structures to represent these abstractions and the algorithms to efficiently implement their services. From EEL4882, we will expect you to understand basic operating systems concepts, including threads, processes, memory management and basic resource synchronization.

This course can serve you very well in your goals to become an IT professional. Success for all of us (me included) comes from being prepared, working hard (and smart) and having fun. Please put in the effort necessary to achieve the first two and the third will follow.