Welcome to CS 24! We’re super excited to have you here this term!
Announcements
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Please fill out the course survey. Note that you will have to log in with your Caltech account to fill in the survey.
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Check out the course invitation links for course tools such as the discord and the discussion board.
Due Next
Calendar
Wellness and Inclusion
It is very important to us that you succeed in CS 24. We provide many extra resources to help you. Adam and the TAs hold many office hours, and we have a message board called Ed Discussion.
It is also very important to us that you maintain your mental wellness throughout the course. A few points are not worth losing sleep over. Everyone on the course staff is available to chat, and you can always attend office hours for a non-academic conversation if necessary. You can also visit the counseling center if you find you need help beyond the course staff. If you have a temporary health condition or permanent disability (either mental health or physical health related), you should contact accessibility services if you have not already. Additionally, if there is something we can do to make your experience better, please let us know.
Diversity, inclusion, and belonging are all core values of this course. All participants in this course must be treated with respect by other members of the community in accordance with the honor code. If you feel unwelcome or unsafe in any way, no matter how minor, we encourage you to talk to Adam or one of the Deans. We view these sorts of honor code violations as completely unacceptable, and we take them very seriously.
Tools
Course Staff
Instructor
Teaching Assistants
Handouts
The following is a list of handouts that you might find helpful throughout the course. We’ve categorized them by when they are useful.
Course
Syllabus – an overview of the course and administrative information
Collaboration Policy – the course collaboration policy
Code Quality Guidelines – a list of style requirements for the projects
Tools of the Trade – tutorials for tools that you will need to use in this course
Manual Pages – documentation for relevant standard C functions
Weeks 2 & 3
x86-64 Reference – a description of relevant instructions and ABIs for x86-64
Schedule
| L00 | Mon, Sep 27 |
Perspectives on Computing Systems
What is this course about? How will grading work? What will the notes look like? What is hexadecimal and why do I care? How do computers represent information?
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| L01 | Wed, Sep 29 |
Memory
[ pdf
]
What does an abstraction for memory look like? Give me the details!
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| L02 | Fri, Oct 01 |
Fixed-Width Integers
[ pdf
]
How do computers represent integers? What about negative numbers? How does this affect me as a programmer?
DS 4.1-4.7
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| L03 | Mon, Oct 04 |
x86-64 Introduction
[ pdf
]
What is x86-64? Why should I care about assembly? How can I understand basic assembly programs and instructions such as mov and others?
DS 7.1-7.3
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| Project00 (disk) due @ 11:30 pm on Mon, Oct 04 | ||
| L04 | Wed, Oct 06 |
x86-64 Conditionals
[ pdf
]
How does branching work in x86-64? What is a label? How can we translate if statements into assembly?
DS 7.4
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| L05 | Fri, Oct 08 |
x86-64 Loops & Data
[ pdf
]
Can you decipher the mystery programs? How do memory instructions work?
DS 7.5-7.6
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| L06 | Mon, Oct 11 |
x86-64 Procedures
[ pdf
]
How do function calls and returns work? What is 'the stack' really?
DS 7.7-7.9, 12
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| Project01 (jvm) due @ 11:30 pm on Mon, Oct 11 | ||
| L07 | Wed, Oct 13 |
x86-64 Recursive Procedures
How does recursion work using the stack?
DS 7.7-7.9, 12
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| L08 | Fri, Oct 15 |
Security: Buffer Overflows
What happens if we read past the end of a buffer? How can we exploit this?
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| L09 | Mon, Oct 18 |
Dynamic Memory: Basic
[ pdf
]
What does a "basic" implementation of malloc look like?
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| Project02a (bomb) due @ 11:30 pm on Mon, Oct 18 | ||
| :( | Wed, Oct 20 | No Class: Mental Health Break |
| L10 | Fri, Oct 22 |
Dynamic Memory: Advanced
[ pdf
]
How can we make a performant malloc implementation?
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| L11 | Mon, Oct 25 |
Dynamic Memory: Garbage Collection
[ pdf
]
~~How does Python handle reclaiming memory?~~ Cancelled due to students being overwhelmed!
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| Project02b (asmgen) due @ 11:30 pm on Mon, Oct 25 | ||
| L12 | Wed, Oct 27 |
ECF: Processes
What is a process? How does Linux create, maintain, and destroy processes? How do shells work?
DS 13.2, OSTEP 5
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| L13 | Fri, Oct 29 |
ECF: Signals
How do programs that are misbehaving get dealt with? How does the kernel communicate to user programs that something important has happened?
DS 13.4.1
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| L14 | Mon, Nov 01 |
Memory: Locality & The Memory Hierarchy
How is memory unified into a seemingly giant array? What properties of programs make this work? How can we write good programs that take advantage of these properties?
DS 11.1-11.2
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| Project03 (adventure) due @ 11:30 pm on Mon, Nov 01 | ||
| L15 | Wed, Nov 03 |
Memory: Cache Memories
DS 11.3 |
| L16 | Fri, Nov 05 |
Memory: Virtual Memory
DS 13.3 |
| L17 | Mon, Nov 08 | Security: Side-Channel Attacks |
| L18 | Wed, Nov 10 | Security: Meltdown |
| L19 | Fri, Nov 12 |
Concurrent Programming: Processes & Threads
OSTEP 26 |
| L20 | Mon, Nov 15 |
Concurrent Programming: pthreads & mutexes
OSTEP 27 |
| Project04 (malloc) due @ 11:30 pm on Mon, Nov 15 | ||
| L21 | Wed, Nov 17 |
Concurrent Programming: pthreads & mutexes
OSTEP 27 |
| L22 | Fri, Nov 19 |
Concurrent Programming: Condition Variables
OSTEP 30 |
| :( | Mon, Nov 22 | No Class: Adam Sick |
| Project05 (vm & meltdown) due @ 11:30 pm on Mon, Nov 22 | ||
| :( | Wed, Nov 24 | No Class: Thanksgiving! |
| :( | Fri, Nov 26 | No Class: Thanksgiving! |
| L23 | Mon, Nov 29 |
Concurrent Programming: More Condition Variables
OSTEP 30 |
| L24 | Wed, Dec 01 | Final Exam Review |
| L25 | Fri, Dec 03 | Victory Lap |
| Project06 (passwd) due @ 11:30 pm on Fri, Dec 03 | ||
| Final (final) due @ 11:30 pm on Thu, Dec 09 | ||