CS 161: Operating Systems (Spring 2017)

Tuesday/Thursday 1:00pm-2:30pm

Pierce 301

James Mickens

Professor	Teaching Fellows
James Mickens	Richard Cho: rcho@college.harvard.edu
Maxwell Dworkin 335	Office Hours: Tuesday, 8:30pm--10:30pm@Quincy dining hall
mickens@g.harvard.edu	Victor Domene: victordomene@college.harvard.edu
http://mickens.seas.harvard.edu	Office Hours: Sunday, 3pm--5pm@Maxwell Dworkin, second floor lounge
(617) 384-8132	David Holland: dholland@sauclovia.org
Office Hours: Tuesday, 2:30pm--4pm@Maxwell Dworkin 335	Office Hours: Wednesday, 5pm--7pm@CS night (MD 221)
	Peter Kraft: pkraft@college.harvard.edu
	Office Hours: Monday, 8pm-10pm@Pfoho dining hall
	Alex Patel: alexanderpatel@college.harvard.edu
	Office Hours: Wednesday, 8pm--10pm@Adams dining hall

Sections

There will be two sections:

Tuesdays 7:00pm--8:30pm: Maxwell Dworkin 123
Wednesdays 3:00pm--4:30pm: Maxwell Dworkin 223

You may attend whichever section you want. You may attend both sections, but they will typically contain the same information.

Announcements

Please sign up for the Piazza site! For the first week of the semester we will post announcements here, but after that point, we will post all announcements via Piazza.

Prerequisites

Computer Science 61 or permission of instructor.

Text

Doeppner: Operating Systems In Depth (required)

Overview

This course is an introduction to operating systems. After completing this course, you should be able to:

Explain how operating systems provide the abstractions with which programmers and users are familiar.
Work effectively with a partner.
Design, implement, modify, and analyze complex software systems.
Undertake different types of design projects including: implementing to a well-defined interface, designing appropriate interfaces to provide specified functionality, extending an existing body of code.
Explain through examples how violation of good design and coding practices lead to security problems.
Analyze how operating systems problems are addressed in different systems and understand why particular approaches were taken.

Before each class, you will typically be asked to read background material, and/or watch video clips that provide information on a relevant topic. Throughout the course, we will also ask you to complete short surveys; these surveys allow us to improve our teaching approaches, and ensure that students are getting the most from the course!

Course Requirements	Course Policies
Class participation (10%)	This includes pre-class work, speaking in class, and participation on Piazza.
Four homework assignments (50%)	No late days for Assignment 1; Assignments 2-4 completed in teams of 2, with 5 total late days for Assignments 2-4.
Midterm (15%)	Submitted online (but taken in-class).
Final take-home exam (25%)	Submitted online; must be completed within 24 hours of initial access.

Collaboration Policy

There are three types of work associated with this course and each has its own specific policy for collaboration.

Web work/surveys: These should be completed by individuals without collaboration.
Homework assignments: Homework assignments are to be completed by the individual or team whose name(s) appear(s) on the submission. You are free to discuss the assignment with anyone else in the class, including design documents, debugging tips, or suggested tools. When such discussions influence your design or implementation, you must identify the individuals who influenced you in the written documents that accompany your assignment. Similarly, if you get design ideas from a web site, book, or external piece of code, you should cite those sources as well.
Exams: No collaboration is allowed, but the exams are open book -- more details will accompany each exam.

We encourage students to talk to each other about the course. In particular, you can always discuss technical details about software used in the course. You can share design information, help each other debug, brainstorm ideas, talk about CS161 over dinner, shout out breakthroughs in your sleep, etc. Academic integrity requires that when you submit work, you make it clear who contributed to the work and from where ideas came.