Start of classes.

The first set of lecture notes, Topic Study list, and course information will be posted in the course directory /cs/course/4221.

The list of suggested topics will be posted in the course directory on Red in the file: /cs/course/4221/4221_topics

COSC4221/5421 Test 1 will be held on Wednesday, October 17, 2012 19:00.

COSC4221/5421 Test 2 will be held on Wednesday, November 28, 2012 19:00.

It is possible that Test 1 and Test 2 may include true/false questions, questions that require short answers, questions that may require the drawing of diagrams, questions that require slightly longer answers, and other possible question formats.

As mentioned during the lecture last week, Assignment 1 will be due on Wednesday October 24 (that is the Wednesday following Test 1), at 19:00.

(1) For students who have chosen to do a programming assignment, the programming assignment should be handed in on Wednesday October 24. (Students who have chosen to do a programming assignment, are required to complete one Topic Study in addition to the programming assignment - that one Topic Study is due on the last day to hand in term work, that is, Monday December 3.)

(2) For students who have chosen to do a non-programming assignment, the Topic Study 1 Presentation must be presented to the class on Wednesday October 24. (Students who have chosen to do a non-programming assignment, are required to complete two Topic Studies - the second Topic Study is due on the last day to hand in term work, that is, Monday December 3.)

(3) Note that both Topic Study Report 1 (which is separate from the Presentation) and Topic Study Report 2 can be handed in on the last day to hand in term work, that is, Monday December 3.

(4) Please also note that all Topic Study presentation slides, Topic Study reports, Programming Assignment reports, Project reports, must also be submitted electronically to the appropriate subdirectory a1, topic1, topic2, or project, under the course directory /cs/course/4221/submit on or before the respective due dates.

A student in the class would like to find a partner for the assignment and project - the student can be contacted by sending email to roozbeh0@yorku.ca.

COSC4221 Test 1 will be held on Wednesday, October 17, 2012 19:00-21:00.

Test 1 will include:

a) Material covered in the lectures from the beginning of the term up to and including the lecture on Wednesday October 10;

b) Material in the files OSD.1.pdf, OSD.1.1.pdf, OSD.2.pdf, OSD.3.pdf, OSD.4.pdf, OSD.4.1.pdf in the course directory;

c) Material in Chapter 10, “File-System Interface” and Chapter 11, “File-System Implementation” of the book “Operating System Concepts”, 8th Ed;

d) Material in Chapter 12 “The Virtual Filesystem”, and Chapter 18 “The Ext2 and Ext3 Filesystems” of the book “Understanding the Linux Kernel”, 3rd Edition related to the material in the slides listed in item b above.

(Please make sure that you have the most up-to-date version of the slides in the above mentioned files, as some of the slides may have been updated since you last downloaded them.)

It is possible that Test 1 may include true/false questions, questions that require short answers, questions that may require the drawing of diagrams, questions that require slightly longer answers, and other possible question formats.

MAKE SURE YOU READ AND UNDERSTAND ALL THE MATERIAL IN THE SLIDES.

ALSO NOTE THAT DRAWING THE SAME KIND OF DIAGRAMS AS ILLUSTRATED IN THE SLIDES, WILL BE AN IMPORTANT COMPONENT OF TEST 1. For example, if you are given a diagram similar to that on slide 9 of OSD4.pdf, “Example of a Small File System Tree in Unix”, then you should be able to draw the corresponding diagram on slide 10, “Internal Structure of Small File system Tree in Unix”, as well as the corresponding diagram on slide 24, “In Memory VFS Objects and On Disk Objects”.

Also please note that, unfortunately, I am unable to provide individual answers to individual student questions regarding what kind of questions may be included, or not included, in the tests, beyond what I had said during the lectures and what has been posted on the course website above.

The reason is because doing so will be unfair to other students in the class who do not receive the same information.

For all questions regarding tests, please ask me during the lectures so that everyone in the class would have equal opportunity to know my answers to any questions regarding any test.

Thank you for your understanding.

Please note that, for all course work, including presentation slides and reports related to assignments, topic studies, and projects, you not only need to hand in a hard copy to the instructor, but also need to submit an electronic copy to the course directory.

Please note that there is no class on Wednesday Oct. 31, as Oct. 31 is the first day of the Co-Curricular Days. http://www.registrar.yorku.ca/enrol/dates/fw12.htm

Please see the explanation regarding the difference between the alternative (programming) assignment and the alternative (programming) project at:

https://wiki.cse.yorku.ca/course_archive/2012-13/F/4221/faq#general

In short, there is a significant difference in how the project will be evaluated compared with the assignment.

In general, one would expect that, compared with the assignment, the project should:

1. demonstrate a much higher “degree of sophistication of the laboratory experiments in the tutorial/manual;”

2. teach to a much more sophisticated degree, “how to exploit the capabilities of the QNX Neutrino RTOS (Neutrino RTOS) on the selected host and board.”