Memory Management Syllabus (CS 395T Fall 2003)

Course Expectations & Grading

The purpose of this course is to increase your knowledge of the subject matter, of course, but more importantly, my 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 thus focus use high bandwidth communication using student presentations and participation, and the course project will be a research project plan (proposal).

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 and has been widely studied since 1960. 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.

Each week the class will present and discuss two papers from the memory management literature. Each presenter will prepare a 30 minute talk, and 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 10 minute break between presentations, and we will conclude each day by preparing a list of questions the papers leave open (which may or may not be answered with future papers!).

Course participation will be measured by paper presentations and in class discussions, and will determine 70% of your course grade. Say something about every paper we discuss! Since there are only 14 class meetings, class attendance is also mandatory and will contribute to your participation grade. To facilitate class participation, you will be required to meet with a study partner on Monday's prior to class and discuss the reading.