Curriculum Proposal to SCS Faculty May 2011

This document contains proposed course changes for the 2012/2013 academic year.

Courses to be Eliminated

• COMP 2003
  • assembly language => exposure through COMP 2401 and 2405
  • digital logic => COMP 1805
  • number representation => COMP 1805 and 2401
  • processor architectures, interrupts, devices => exposure in COMP 2401
  • multicore => cross-cutting concern

Courses to be Upgraded

We propose to keep the following courses, but not include them in the set of minimum required courses. To facilitate this, we have moved selected topics to other required courses.

• COMP 2805
  • finite automata => COMP 1805
  • rest of formal languages, computability, automata theory => stays
• COMP 3000: operating systems
  • programmer view of following => COMP 2401
    • process management
    • memory management
    • process coordination and synchronization
    • inter-process communication
    • file systems
    • networking
  • kernel view of above => stays
  • real-time clock management => stays
  • I/O device drivers => stays
• COMP 3005
  • database query languages => COMP 2405
• COMP 3007
  • functional languages, closures => COMP 2405

Software Engineering

COMP 2404: Introduction to Software Engineering

Introduction to object-oriented software development, with emphasis on design and implementation of medium-sized programs. Topics include abstraction, modularity, encapsulation, reusability, and design patterns.

COMP 3004: Object-Oriented Software Engineering

No changes.

Programming

• we already changed 1405 and 1406
• goal is to teach programming through teaching other topics that are central to modern CS: OS, databases, web

COMP 2401: Introduction to Systems Programming

Introduction to programming at the system level, with procedures, primitive data types, and user-defined data structures, designed for B.C.S. students. Topics include: basic OS concepts (including processes), pointers, heap and stack memory allocation and deallocation, system/library calls, signal handling and inter-process communication.

COMP 2405: Internet Application Programming

Old course description

Design and implementation of Internet application programs. Topics include: fundamentals of the Web, introduction to client/server architectures, Internet programming, Web browsers, hypertext links, network programming.

Precludes additional credit for COMP 2005.

Prerequisite: COMP 2401 and COMP 1406.

Restricted to students registered in the B.C.S. program, combined Honours in Computer Science and Mathematics, Honours Computer Mathematics, and Honours Computer Statistics.

Lectures three hours a week.

New course description

An introduction to Internet application development that emphasizes the computer science fundamentals of the technologies underlying web applications. Topics include: scripting and functional languages, language-based virtual machines, database query languages, remote procedure calls over the Internet, and performance and security concerns in modern distributed applications.

Precludes additional credit for COMP 2005.

Prerequisite: COMP 2401.

Restricted to students registered in the B.C.S. program, combined Honours in Computer Science and Mathematics, Honours Computer Mathematics, and Honours Computer Statistics.

Lectures three hours a week along with weekly one-hour tutorials.

Rationale

   * learn basics of modern web applications?
   * basics of dynamic languages
         o first class functions
         o functional programming concepts (non-mutability) 
   * basics of databases
         o data representation
         o query languages 
   * basics of distributed applications
         o latency vs. bandwidth
         o reliability concerns
         o state vs. stateless