Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!ukma!psuvax1!psuvm!ron
Organization: Penn State - Erie
Date: Monday, 3 Jun 1991 18:44:54 EDT
From: Ron McCarty <RON@psuvm.psu.edu>
Message-ID: <91154.184454RON@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: MINIX for the classroom
References:  <1991Jun3.200654.29220@news.nd.edu>

In article <1991Jun3.200654.29220@news.nd.edu>, dlc@totocc.nd.edu (David L.
Cohn) says:
>
>Can anyone explain why Prentice-Hall recommends using Version 1.3 for an
>introductory OS class rather than 1.5?  Is it just that 1.3 is closer to the
>version in the text?  How hard is it to use 1.5 with the text?
>

I didn't realize that they did, but I would imagine that it is because the
source code more closely matches that in the text. After my experiences
using both I would say that it is not very good advice. I found version 1.5
much easier to work with and I did not find the disparity in the source
code to be that much of a problem to deal with. The source code is all there
on disk when the students need to work with it & I found that spending lots of
lecture time closely scrutinizing the code is not that useful. Lectures need
to deal with things at a higher conceptual level... you can really get bogged
down looking at the code line by line. It would be helpful to have up to
date listings in the book but I think the improvements in 1.5 and the
material in the 1.5 User's manual are worth far more than the closer
agreement between the source code in the text and 1.3.

I wish P-H would sell the User's manual separately. I would gladly have
my students buy the text and the User's manual but I can not realistically
expect each of them to buy a copy of the software. The licence says I can
freely copy the software for educational purposes but I can not copy (and
do not want the headaches of copying) the User's manual.

Ron McCarty
Instructor, Computer Science
Penn State - Erie