[luau] ics412: operating systems

[Eric Hattemer]

Alright, nothing specific to cite here, but I have some comments.  I'm
at USC, and here we use a program called nachos for our OS class.  I
haven't taken the class, but I can tell you its the hardest class in CS
if not the entire university.  But everyone knows this, its a grad
requirement, and they just accept it, and sit in the computer lab for
10-20 hours a week working in groups on the sun machines.  As I
understand it, Nachos is a piecework OS, with parts cut out, so that you
can learn on it.  I think it comes with the basic I/O kernel already. 
Students need to make a shell, handle files, make process scheduling,
and other things like that.  

I think what was said about UH being a weekday university is probably
true.  Here if you're a CS or CECS major, you can always find a friend
in the computer lab.  

Here at USC, doing programs on Unix is no big deal, since starting at
101, about half of the programs are done on solaris, and half are done
in MS VS.  

One thing I wanted to point out that no one mentioned is that students
always seem to love the paradigm they start with.  At USC, everyone
starts in C.  We eventually move up to C++ and Java.  When they move
back to C for the OS class, its no big deal.  It took me a very long
time to be comfortable with object oriented stuff, and I still hate it
for the most part.  Part of this is because I had to use MFC, which is
so convoluted with objects, you wouldn't believe it.  But I love
procedural programing and C/non-OO-C++, and I really don't like object
oriented stuff.  It kind of bothers me when I look at linux code and see
extensive use of giant structs used like classes in C.  

A lot of other universities have taken Java and objects as the greatest
new thing ever.  They preach these, and consider C to be old and
obsolete.  And to some extent, this will be true for a lot of people.  A
lot of them are going to do web stuff and database stuff, and things
that are ultra-high level language with objects.  People love their
objects, then when the university later shows them C, they freak out. 
They miss their beautiful objects, and think this style is old and
confusing.  I have lots of friends who are CS majors at USC and
elsewhere.  A lot of my USC friends aren't big fans of OOP, and a lot of
my non-USC friends aren't fans of procedural.  

I think I had some more to talk about, but I have quite a few midterms
this week, so maybe I'll get back to you folks later.  

-Eric Hattemer