Engr 664: Concurrent Programming
Spring Semester 1996
Syllabus

Locations

The spring semester 1996 class meets in 352 Weir Hall at 11:00 a.m., Tuesday-Thursday.

The class is taught by Prof. Conrad Cunningham, whose office is 312 Weir Hall. Prof. Cunningham's official office hours for this semester are 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. Monday-Wednesday and 1:15 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday.

The final examination for this class is scheduled for Noon on Tuesday, 7 May 1996.

Prerequisites

Graduate standing in computer science.

Note: The CSCI 550 prerequisite is not being enforced. Previous study of functional and/or logic programming and of operating systems is probably advantageous.

Source Materials

Textbook:

K. M. Chandy and S. Taylor. An Introduction to Parallel Programming, Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 1992

Manual:

I. Foster and S. Tuecke. Parallel Programming with PCN. Technical Report, Argonne National Laboratory.

This manual is available via anonymous FTP in gzip-compressed Postscript format at URL ftp://ftp.cs.olemiss.edu/pub/engr664/pcn/pcn_prog_v2.0.ps.gz.
(Students should not print this document on the Department's laserprinters!)

Notes:

H. Conrad Cunningham. Notes on Concurrent Programming with PCN. Technical Report UMCIS-1993-04, Department of Computer and Information Science.

H. Conrad Cunningham. The Dining Philosophers Problem: A Monitor-Based Solution in PCN. Technical Report UMCIS-1996-021 Department of Computer and Information Science.

H. Conrad Cunningham. PCN Solutions to the Racetrack Problem. Technical Report UMCIS-1996-02, Department of Computer and Information Science.

These reports are available via anonymous FTP in Postscript format at ftp://ftp.cs.olemiss.edu/pub/tech-reports. (Students should not print UMCIS-1993-03 on the Department's laserprinters!)

Software:

Argonne National Laboratory's Program Composition Notation (PCN) system, version 2.0.

This software will be installed on system sunset, the SGI Challenge multiprocessor in the Computer Center.

Readings:

Various journal and conference articles, research reports, and book excerpts as appropriate.

Course Outline

1. Concurrency concepts and terminology.
2. Program Composition Notation (PCN) concepts.
3. Programming with PCN.
4. Concurrent program design techniques.
5. Case studies.
6. Other programming models and notations.

School of Engineering Honor Code Statement

"The Honor Code shall apply to all students, both undergraduate and graduate, registered in and/or seeking degrees through the School of Engineering. The Honor Code shall be understood to apply to all academic areas of the School such as examinations, quizzes, laboratory reports, themes, computer programs, homework, and other possible assignments. Only that work explicitly identified by the class instructor not to be under the Honor Code is excluded. The intent of the Honor Code is to recognize professional conduct and, thus, it shall be deemed a violation of the Honor Code to knowingly deceive, copy, paraphrase, or otherwise misrepresent your work in a manner inconsistent with professional conduct."

Assignments

• All students are expected to study the relevant portions of the textbook, manual, and handouts in conjunction with our class discussions. Explicit reading assignments will not always be given.
• Several of the homework assignments will be programming projects using PCN, C, and/or UNIX on Departmental or MCSR systems.
• Other homework assignments may be problem solving or writing assignments.
• All students are expected to do their own work on programming and other homework assignments.
• All students are expected to complete their homework assignments by their due dates. (Late homework papers may be accepted for up to at least one week after the due date, but grade penalties will increase daily. No homework will be accepted after the final examination period.)

Examinations

• Three equally weighted examinations
• Third examination will be given during 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

Grading

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

75% of the semester grade will come from the exam average and 25% from the homework assignment average.

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