Engr 664: Concurrent Programming
Fall Semester 2009
Syllabus

Locations

The fall semester 2009 class meets in 235 Weir Hall at 8:00 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

The class is taught by Prof. Conrad Cunningham, whose office is in 203 Weir Hall. The official office hours for this class are from 10:00 to 11:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays and by appointment at other times.

Prof. Cunningham's voice telephone number is (662) 915-5358 and fax number is (662) 915-5623. His WWW home page is http://www.cs.olemiss.edu/~hcc/ and his email address is cunningham AT cs DOT olemiss DOT edu.

The WWW home page for this class is http://www.cs.olemiss.edu/~hcc/engr664/ .

The final examination for this class is scheduled for Tuesday, 8 December, 8:00 a.m..

Student Disabilities Services Statement

"It is the responsibility of any student with a disability who requests a reasonable accommodation to contact the Office of Disability Services (915-7128). Contact will then be made by that office through the student to the instructor of this class. The instructor will then be happy to work with the student so that a reasonable accommodation of any disability can be made."

Course Description from Catalog

Topics in the theory of concurrent programming. Models of concurrency. Programming logics. Emphasis on the formal specification and verification of concurrent programs.

Prerequisites

This class is intended for students admitted in full standing in the graduate emphasis in Computer Science. Students are expected to have a background in finite state machines, operating systems, algorithms, data structures, programming languages, and discrete mathematics typical of an undergraduate computer science program. Use of the the Java programming language will likely be required in programming exercises. (Optionally, use of a language such as Scala that interoperates with Java will be encouraged.)

Graduate students in other fields should not be enrolled in this class without the explicit permission of their department and the instructor for this course.

Course Outcomes/Objectives

Upon successful completion of this course, students:

1. know and understand the fundamental concepts for concurrent programming (e.g., processes, threads, interaction),
2. know and understand the issues that can arise in concurrent programs (e.g., interference, deadlock, starvation)
3. know and understand the basic techniques for concurrent programming (e.g., mutual exclusion, condition synchronization, message passing),
4. know and understand the fundamental concepts of modeling concurrent systems with finite state machines (e.g., the Finite State Processes notation),
5. can build appropriate finite state machine models for simple concurrent systems,
6. can express desirable and undesirable properties of concurrent systems (e.g., safety, liveness),
7. can apply a model-checking tool (e.g., the Labelled Transition System Analysis tool) to evaluate whether the models have the desirable properties and do not have the undesirable ones,
8. know and understand the concurrent programming features of a programming language (e.g., Java),
9. can implement finite state machine models as concurrent programs in the programming language,
10. can analyze a concurrent programming problem to design an appropriate concurrent architecture,
11. can evaluate alternative concurrent architectures for a problem,
12. know and understand a few selected advanced techniques and architectures (e.g., dynamic systems, timed systems, filter pipelines).

Source Materials

Textbook:

Jeff Magee and Jeff Kramer. Concurrency: State Models and Java Programs, Second Edition, Wiley, 2006. ISBN-13: 978-0-470-09356-6.

Software:

Labelled Transition System Analysis (LTSA) toolset from the textbook's companion website http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~jnm/book/.

Java or other languages such as Scala.

Readings:

Various journal and conference articles, research reports, and other materials as appropriate.

Course Topics

Core

1. Concurrency concepts
2. Processes and threads
3. Concurrent execution
4. Shared objects and mutual exclusion
5. Monitors and condition synchronization
6. Deadlock
7. Safety and liveness properties
8. Model-based design

   Advanced (selected from the following)

9. Dynamic systems
10. Message passing
11. Concurrent architectures
12. Timed systems
13. Program verification
14. Logical properties
15. Software transactional memory
16. Software architecture modeling

Professional Conduct

As a student in Engr 664, you are expected to conduct yourself in a professional manner according to the Honor Code of the School of Engineering, the Information Technology Appropriate Use Policy, the M Book, and any other relevant policies.

Limited Collaboration Policy. Unless otherwise indicated, any homework assignment or programming exercise given in this class will be an individual assignment. The work you submit is to reflect the knowledge, understanding, and skill that you have attained as an individual. However, the instructor does want to encourage the development of a community of scholars who are actively engaged in discussion of the ideas related to this course. With this in mind, you are allowed to discuss solutions of the homework and programming problems with other students if done so according to the following guidelines:

• You may discuss ideas for homework and programming assignments with your classmates. However, you cannot collaborate on writing the solution or the program code. That is, you can talk about the problems and ideas for solving them, but you cannot write things down with anyone else. You are, of course, prohibited from copying or seeing another student's written solution, and you are not allowed to show your work to anyone else.

• You should accept help with care. If you work too closely with another student, you might mislead yourself into believing that you understand the concepts and techniques better than you actually do. Don't forget that the instructor has office hours and can probably give you hints or suggestions to get you started.

• You should give help with care. Do not help anyone too much. When you have solved a problem, it is tempting to just tell other students how you solved it. Instead, try to allow them to come to the solution on their own. Maybe give them a hint to help them get "over a hump." Remember that helping someone too much will hurt them in the long term if they can't work through problems on the exams by themselves. So avoid the temptation to do so. If you can't help other students without giving away the whole solution, direct them to see the instructor (who may or may not have a way to "edge" them toward the solution).

• You are not obligated to help anyone. If you feel uncomfortable helping another student for any reason, please direct them to see the instructor.

• Except as described above, all work in this class is covered by the School of Engineering's Honor Code statement on plagiarism. It is plagiarism "to knowingly deceive, copy, paraphrase, or otherwise misrepresent your work in a manner inconsistent with professional conduct".

Grading

60 percent of the semester grade will come from the exam average and 40 percent from the homework assignment average.

My grading scale is A [90..100], B [80..90), C [70..80), D [60..70), and F [0..60).

Assignments

• All students are expected to study the relevant portions of the textbook and handouts in conjunction with our class discussions (i.e., before coming to class). Explicit reading assignments will not always be given.

• Several of the assignments will consist of problem-solving or design exercises (e.g., the exercises given in textbook). In preparing and submitting these homework papers make sure that:
  • your name, the course number or name, the assignment identifier, and individual exercises are clearly marked on the paper. (If it is a group assignment, give the group identifier and the names of all members.)
  • you write legibly on only one side of the paper in a black or blue pen or dark pencil. (Do NOT use red or green ink!) (Some of the assignments may require that materials be generated with a word processor and/or other tools.)
  • your paper is stapled together in the upper left corner.

• Several of the homework assignments will be programming exercises or exercises using the analysis toolset.

• As appropriate, there may be a few in-class assignments or quizzes that count toward the assignment/project portion of the grade.

• All students or groups are expected to complete their assignments by their due dates. If an assignment is submitted late, a penalty of 10 percent of that assignment's grade will be assessed for each day it is late. A homework assignment will not be accepted after graded papers have been returned, after a solution has been distributed, or after the final examination.

Examinations

• There will be three examinations. The third one is optional.

• The examination portion of the semester grade will be calculated by averaging the two best examination grades.

• The first examination will be given in late September or early October.

• The second examination will be given in November.

• The third examination will be given during the final examination period.

• Each exam will cover all topics studied to that point.

• Each exam may consist of a combination of in-class and take-home components.

• If you cannot take an examination at the scheduled time because of an illness or other special circumstances, please notify Prof. Cunningham in advance. Without advance notification, it may not be possible to give a make-up examination.

• Please do not ask to take the final examination earlier than the time set for the entire class.

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