Memory Management Syllabus (CS 661 Spring 2012)
Course Expectations & Grading
The purpose of this course is to increase your knowledge of the subject matter
and just as importantly, the goal is to provide an environment that promotes
and rewards creative and deep thinking, and poses new research questions about
memory management. The classroom structure will include lectures by the
instructor and presentations by students of papers and programs (i.e., real
code!). Attendance is mandatory and you will submit 14 paper critiques, one
per week.
In this course, we will study Automatic Memory Management (Garbage Collection)
and Explicit Memory Management. Memory management is a key programming
language implementation issue that has an enormous impact on program
efficiency and ease of programming. It has been widely studied since 1960, yet
it remains an important and vibrant research topic. The knowledge you will
gain from this course will include a deep and broad understanding of the
algorithms and practical considerations of automatic and explicit memory
management.
Course participation
Students will present and lead discussion on papers from the memory management
literature. You must participate in class discussions for papers that you do
not present. Say something about every paper we discuss! Class
attendance is expected and will contribute to your participation grade.
Each week, you will either present a paper or critique one of the two papers
presented that week.
Thus each week, you will present or submit graded work.
Student presentations
Each presenter will prepare a 30 minute talk, which must
be emailed to the professor before class. The presenter will lead an
additional 30 minute discussion. The presenter will prepare questions for an
in depth analysis of the paper and/or questions stemming from the paper. In
weeks that you prepare a presentation, you are not responsible for a critique.
- Prepare at most 15 slides.
- Include the strengths and weaknesses of the paper.
- Prepare discussion questions.
- I will prepare an evaluation of your talk.
Critiques
A critique is similar to a referee's report for a
paper submitted to a conference.
Grading
- 50% course critiques
- 20% attendance and class participation
- 30% presentations
Goals
- Improve writing skills
- Improve critical reading and discussion skills
- Improve public speaking skills
- Research preparation in memory management
I hope we all learn a lot this semester.
Antony Hosking