Wanted a syllabus Unix for science students

[Jeffrey Kegler]

In article <7686 at bsu-cs.bsu.edu> dhesi at bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Rahul Dhesi) writes:
>In article <2360 at botter.cs.vu.nl> wallagh at cs.vu.nl writes:
>>At the University of Amsterdam the computer science students have to
>>learn Unix in their second year.
>
>Learning about one specific operating system has been out of style for
>some years in true computer science programs.  Teach them about
>operating systems in general, and include ideas not only from UNIX but
>from other operating systems as well.

I am no longer close enough to academia to know whether the "issues"
approach or the "case study" approach is more in fashion, but must say that
I completely disagree with Rahul about their respective merits.

My own operating systems courses were "issues" courses.  I do not believe
that students (or anyone) can really understand the tradeoffs involved in
these operating system issues, unless they know at least one operating
system thoroughly.  I feel my own real understanding of operating systems
came from learning UNIX, not from the survey of scheduling algorithms, etc.
I had in school.

So, Amsterdam, by all means teach them operating systems by teaching them
UNIX.  For advanced courses, teach them more UNIX.  For the very advanced
courses, give them a survey of scheduling, disk allocation, etc., once
the students can really understand what you are talking about.
-- 

Jeffrey Kegler, President, Algorists,
jeffrey at algor2.UU.NET or uunet!algor2!jeffrey
1762 Wainwright DR, Reston VA 22090