I've registered and submitted the first assignment. Booyah! - Kurt
On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 1:46 PM, Marvin Humphrey <[email protected]>wrote: > Greets, > > There's a Coursera MOOC (Massively Open Online Course) which started this > past Monday; it looks like Logan and I are both going to try it out, and > perhaps some others might find it interesting. > > https://www.coursera.org/course/hwswinterface > > The Hardware/Software Interface > > Gaetano Borriello and Luis Ceze, University of Washington > > Examines key computational abstraction levels below modern high-level > languages. From Java/C to assembly programming, to basic processor and > system organization. > > The thing which caught my eye was the book which is used for supplemental > reading: > > > http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Systems-Programmers-Perspective-2nd/dp/0136108040 > Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective (2nd Edition) > Randal E. Bryant, David R. O'Hallaron > > That's a book which has been a candidate for the Lucy Book Club -- but at > over > 1000 pages, it's a big committment. In constrast, the Coursera course is 8 > weeks and done. If we want to continue on with the book afterwards, we'll > have that option. > > We'll presumably be meeting weekly, just as the Book Club has since we > started > last year. > > To take the course, apparently knowledge of C is helpful but not a required > prerequisite -- the professors mention that they ordinarily teach it to > first > year comp sci undergrads who often know Java but not C. Given the diverse > backgrounds of people who are interested in Lucy development and are > subscribed to this list, it's only natural that some amount of the material > will be review, but nevertheless I expect that for many of us it will fill > in > some gaps. Personally, I'm looking forward to beefing up my x86 assembler > chops and increasing my familiarity with low-level processor instruction > sets > (which is also a focus of the book). > > The one catch is that the course has already started and the first > assignment > is due this coming Monday April 22 at 5pm PDT. It's cake, but you have to > set > up a VM which is a bit of a chore. (Tip: if you're using a Mac and you > don't > own VMWare Fusion, see this thread for how to use VirtualBox instead: > <https://class.coursera.org/hwswinterface-001/forum/thread?thread_id=22>.) > > If you haven't yet tried a MOOC, they are a great resource but if you take > them in a group setting like the Lucy Book Club it's easier to sustain > momentum. FWIW, I'm currently finishing up another Coursera MOOC and I've > been pretty happy with the experience: > > https://www.coursera.org/course/posa > > Pattern-Oriented Software Architectures for Concurrent and Networked > Software > > Douglas C. Schmidt, Vanderbilt University > > In this course we will learn how to apply patterns, pattern languages, > and > frameworks to alleviate the complexity of developing concurrent and > networked software. > > Coursera MOOCs are free, and once you're registered, enrolling in any given > course is two clicks. There's nothing lost by signing up for a course and > then not completing it. For better or worse. ;) > > Marvin Humphrey >
