CSC 252 will not be easy, but will be a rare enlightenment and give you unique thrills.

In CSC 172 you learnt how to write programs in languages that humans can understand (e.g., Java). CSC 252 will teach you how human-readable programs actually run on a computer. We will explain how to transform a human-readable program to a computer-understandable program, how the computer-understandable program is organized and interfaced with the underlying hardware processor, and how to design hardware processors that can execute programs as fast, safe, and efficient as possible.

Ultimately, our objective is to remove a good deal of the mystery of how modern computers work. Even if you decide not to be a computer system designer in future, knowing these will empower you to get the computer to do useful work for you. In that vein, we will start at the bottom and work our way up. In every case, when we cover a sophisticated topic, we will try to tie it to what you already know. We expect you to come out of this course not only knowing how to do some things, but also having a deeper understanding of why some of those things are as they are.

Yuhao Zhu (Instructor)

Email: [yzhu at rochester]

Office hours: Thursday 4 - 5 PM, or by appointment, in Wegmans Hall 3501.

Don' be afraid of coming to office hours! Coming to office hours does not mean you are a weak student. If you just want to stop by and introduce yourself, that's OK also.

 

Alan Beadle (Graduate TA)

Email: [hbeadle at cs.rochester]

Office hours: Monday 11 AM - 1 PM, in Wegmans Hall 2209.

 

Sayak Chakraborti (Graduate TA)

Email: [schakr11 at cs.rochester]

Office hours: Tuesday 2 - 4 PM, in Wegmans Hall 3205.

 

Michael Chavrimootoo (Undergraduate TA)

Email: [mchavrim at u.rochester.edu]

Office hours: Wednesday 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM, in Hylan 301.

 

Alan Chiu (Undergraduate TA)

Email: [pchiu4 at u.rochester.edu]

Office hours: Tuesday 4 - 5 PM, in Hylan 301.

 

Akshay Desai (Undergraduate TA)

Email: [adesai16 at u.rochester.edu]

Office hours: Thursday 2 - 3 PM, in Hylan 301.

 

Benjamin Nemeth (Undergraduate TA)

Email: [bnemeth at u.rochester.edu]

Office hours: Tuesday 10 - 11 AM, in Hylan 301.

 

Eric Weiss (Undergraduate TA)

Email: [eweiss7 at u.rochester.edu]

Office hours: Thursday 5 - 6 PM, in Hylan 301.

 

Jie Zhou (Graduate TA)

Email: [jzhou41 at cs.rochester]

Office hours: Wednesday 1 - 3 PM, in Wegmans Hall 3209.