CSCI 380 Spring 2008, Syllabus

Course webpage:	http://www.cs.xu.edu/csci380/08s/
Time:	TR: 1:00 - 2:15 pm
Location:	Alter 207
Instructor:	Gary Lewandowski
Phone:	513-745-2836
Office:	Hinkle 109
email:	lewandow@cs.xu.edu
Office hours:	MTR: 4:00-5:00, W: 4-4:30. Also by appointment, see my schedule at http://www.cs.xu.edu/~lewandow/schedule08s.html
Textbook:	None!
Grading	Assessment will be based on three tools: Homeworks/mini-projects (50%), final project (25%), and exams (25%). The Mathematics and Computer Science Department has a uniform Grading Standard. You should also read my statements on academic integrity and plus/minus modifiers for insight into my grading philosophy.
Late Policy	Being late sucks. Don't do it or I won't be able to give you points.

Course Objectives

Informally this course is about new, cool technologies that are roaming out in the world that we may not get to learn about in other courses. However, it turns out that to really understand them, we'll see some pretty standard computer science topics (we'll also have to get up to speed on some things are not quite cs but are applied uses of it).

My conception of the course revolves around the notion of the world as a networked place and in that sense those of you who have had networking will see some review as we get started. In this networked world, Google currently has ascended to the top of the heap and as a result a good portion of what we may look at connects to them. In general, we want to think about what it means to have resources connected on a network and how this can positively or negatively impact things we want to do.

So, roughly here are some objectives:

Students will understand the notions of client/server applications and will be able to write them in at least two different contexts.
Students will grasp lower level notions of sockets and processes and will be able to deal with them.
Students will grok parallel programming in at least two styles and will be able to discuss solutions to problems in terms of these styles.
Students will gain skills installing some server components including operating systems and software.
Students will be able to develop (possibly in small teams) a final project using ideas in the course or exploring related concepts in a new context.

Cooperating with others

Cooperation good. Plagiarism bad. Know the difference. Some things in the course will be team based, others will depend on you alone.

Tentative Schedule

VERY Rough because some of the control is going to be handed over to you.

Day	Topic
1: 15 January	Overview, survey, some background
2: 17 January	HTML, CSS
3-4: 22-24 January	Teamwork on javascript, AJAX, maybe SQL
5: 29 January	Show off what you learned? Threads.
6: 31 January	sockets and lower-level fun
7: 5 February	Parallel Programming I
8: 7 February	Parallel Programming II
9: 12 February	Hadoop I
14 February	Winter Break (Requirements due before you leave)
10: 19 February	Hadoop II
11-13: 21-28 February	Map Reduce
14-20: 4,6,11, 13, 25, 27 March	Clustering Stuff
21-28: 1 April - 1 May	Super Fun
8 May	Final Exam: 10:30-12:20 pm!!
8 May	PICNIC!! afternoon -> dark

Gary Lewandowski

Last modified: Tue Jan 15 12:53:10 EST 2008