Memory Management Syllabus (CS 395T Spring 2011)
Course Expectations & Grading
The purpose of this course is to increase your knowledge of the subject matter and just as importantly, the goal is to provide an environment that promotes and rewards creative and deep thinking, and poses new research questions about memory management. The classroom structure will include student paper and code presentations. Attendance is mandatory and you will submit 14 paper critiques, one per class session.
In this course, we will study Automatic Memory Management (Garbage Collection) and Explicit Memory Management. Memory management is a key programming language implementation issue that has an enormous impact on program efficiency and ease of programming. It has been widely studied since 1960, yet it remains an important and vibrant research topic. The knowledge you will gain from this course will include a deep and broad understanding of the algorithms and practical considerations of automatic and explicit memory management.
Student presentations. Each week, two students will present and lead discussion on two papers from the memory management literature. Each presenter will prepare a 30 minute talk, which must be emailed to the professor before class. The presenter will lead an additional 30 minute discussion. The presenter will prepare questions for an in depth analysis of the paper and/or questions stemming from the paper. We will have a 15 minute break between presentations. For weeks you prepare a presentation, you are not responsible for a critique.
Course participation. You must participate in class discussions for papers that you do not present. Say something about every paper we discuss! Since there are only 14 class meetings, class attendance is mandatory and will contribute to your participation grade.
Critiques. Every week, you will either present or critique one of the two papers.
Thus each week, you will present or submit graded work.
Grading.
Goals.
I hope we all learn a lot this semester.