Resources for CSC 173

The main computers for the course will be the machines of the Undergraduate CS Labs in Hylan 301. These machines are currently high-end Dell PCs running Red Hat Linux v7.1 (kernel 2.4.3). Sign-up for accounts will occur the first day of class. Click here if you were absent.

Remote X clients (WebTermX for PCs and eXodus for Macs) are now available on all public machines on campus, and are available free of charge to all ResNet users

The cycle servers for remote access are multiprocessors named cycle1.csug.rochester.edu, cycle2.csug.rochester.edu, and cycle3.csug.rochester.edu. Please make connections to these, not to the machines with displays.

If you are relatively new to Unix, you should read through the introductory material on another page, and plan to attend one of the optional lab sessions during the second week of class.

Students with accounts in the CS research labs may elect to work there instead, but course software will be maintained only on the CSUG network.

Mail and Questions

A class e-mail list will be created through which class announcements will be made. E-mail is the best way to get your questions answered if you cannot meet with the instructor or TAs directly. In addition, an on-line forum has been set up, and is accessible via the On-line CSC173 Forum. Questions of general interest may be directed to the forum, or directly to the instructor or one of the TAs. Any answer deemed useful to the class as a whole will be posted to the forum.

Web Pointers

The Association of C and C++ Users maintains a very useful on-line compendium of reviews for books on C, Unix, and related topics.

Brewing Java: A Tutorial

C Programming

Textbook

The textbook for the course is the same one we used last year. Copies will be on reserve at Carlson library.

Foundations of Computer Science (C Edition), by Alfred V. Aho and Jeffrey D. Ullman, Computer Science Press, 1995. We'll be using only the second half of the book. It's a very good resource, and well worth owning. If you choose not to buy it, expect to spend a lot of time in the library.

Also on reserve at Carlson:

• C and UNIX: Tools for Software Design, by Martin L. Barrett and Clifford H. Wagner, John Wiley and Sons, 1996.
  This book contains a reasonable introduction to C and Unix, together, but it's not fantastic, and it's outrageously expensive, especially for a paperback. Not worth buying, but the library already owns a copy.
• The C Programming Language, by Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie, Prentice Hall, 1988. The classic reference on C. Reasonably accessible, but many alternatives exist.
• Standard C: A Reference, by P. J. Plauger & Jim Brodie, Prentice Hall, 1996. An excellent reference. Thorough and very readable. May be out of print, however.
• Pointers on C, by Kenneth Reek, Addison-Wesley, 1998. An introduction to C that does a particularly nice job (as the title suggests) of covering the use of pointers, which are generally the hardest thing for Java programmers to understand. Has received excellent reviews. Written by a colleague at RIT.
• The UNIX Programming Environment, by Brian Kernighan and Rob Pike, Prentice Hall, 1984. The classic reference on Unix. Good, if dated. Many alternatives exist.
• Quantitative System Performance, by Lazowska, Zahorjan, Graham, and Sevcik, Prentice Hall, 1984. The publishers have returned the copyright to the authors, who have made the material available on-line. It's an excellent resource for analytic modeling of computer systems, a topic we will cover if time permits.