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From: spf@cbnewsl.ATT.COM (Steve Frysinger of Blue Feather Farm)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: CS education
Message-ID: <3127@cbnewsl.ATT.COM>
Date: 1 Dec 89 19:31:53 GMT
References: <16283@duke.cs.duke.edu>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 22

From article <16283@duke.cs.duke.edu>, by crm@romeo.cs.duke.edu (Charlie Martin):
> In article <7184@hubcap.clemson.edu> billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu@hubcap.clemson.edu writes:

> a course that heavily emphsizes internals of a
> particular operating system is not a good choice, and might not be
> useful.  In my opinion, all such courses (OS, lnguages, etc) ought to be
> taught in an OS-independent manner.

I teach an undergrad OS course in exactly this way, and refer to
specific systems only as illustrations and only in contrast with each
other (e.g. memory management on VMS and old-Unix, both on a Vax, help
to show how an OS really shapes the machine).  I wish the course had
a lab, because OS pieces are good engineering projects (a simulated
memory-manager makes a good lab study in linked lists, &c).  Further,
WRITING a scheduler can help a student learn about what it does.

But as far as undergrad OS is concerned, a required intro course
should be about principles, not a specific implementation;  a course
on "Sears DieHard/OS" or whatever should be elective (and maybe not
for credit).

Steve Frysinger


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