Article

Introducing computer systems from a programmer's perspective

Authors:

Randal E. Bryant,

David R. O'HallaronAuthors Info & Claims

SIGCSE '01: Proceedings of the thirty-second SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer Science Education

Pages 90 - 94

https://doi.org/10.1145/364447.364549

Published: 01 February 2001 Publication History

Get Access

Abstract

The course "Introduction to Computer Systems" at Carnegie Mellon University presents the underlying principles by which programs are executed on a computer. It provides broad coverage of processor operation, compilers, operating systems, and networking. Whereas most systems courses present material from the perspective of one who designs or implements part of the system, our course presents the view visible to application programmers. Students learn that, by understanding aspects of the underlying system, they can make their programs faster and more reliable. This approach provides immediate benefits for all computer science and engineering students and also prepares them for more advanced systems courses. We have taught our course for five semesters with enthusiastic responses by the students, the instructors, and the instructors of subsequent systems courses.

References

[1]

Hennessy, J. L., and Patterson, D. A. Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach, second ed. Morgan- Kaufmann, San Francisco, 1996.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[2]

IEEE Computer Society, and ACM. Computing curricula 2001. Draft, Mar. 2000.

Google Scholar

[3]

Lebeck, A. R. Cache conscious programming in undergraduate computer science. In SIGCSE (Mar. 1999), ACM, pp. 247-251.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[4]

Patt, Y. N., and Patel, S. J. Introduction to Computing Systems: From Bits and Gates to C and Beyond. McGraw-Hill, 2000.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[5]

Patterson, D. A., and Hennessy, J. L. Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface. Morgan-Kaufmann, San Francisco, 1997.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[6]

Roberts, E., LeBlanc, R., Shackelford, R., and Denning, P. J. Curriculum 2001: Interim report from the ACM/IEEE-CS task force. In SIGCSE (Mar. 1999), ACM, pp. 343-344.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

Cited By

View all

Yang SBaird MO’Rourke EBrennan KSchneider B(2024)Decoding Debugging Instruction: A Systematic Literature Review of Debugging InterventionsACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/369065224:4(1-44)Online publication date: 5-Sep-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3690652
Gourdine DMatthews S(2023)An Open-Source BinaryGame for Learning Reverse EngineeringJournal of Computing Sciences in Colleges10.5555/3606402.360641938:8(136-145)Online publication date: 1-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3606402.3606419
Railing B(2023)CADSS: Computer Architecture Design Simulator for StudentsProceedings of the Workshop on Computer Architecture Education10.1145/3605507.3610626(34-40)Online publication date: 17-Jun-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3605507.3610626
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Introducing computer systems from a programmer's perspective
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Model curricula
2. Software and its engineering

Recommendations

Introducing computer systems from a programmer's perspective

The course "Introduction to Computer Systems" at Carnegie Mellon University presents the underlying principles by which programs are executed on a computer. It provides broad coverage of processor operation, compilers, operating systems, and networking. ...
Introducing Computer Science into K-8 Classrooms: Teachers' Perspectives from a Large, Urban School District
SIGCSE '20: Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

As part of the national Computer Science for All initiative, there is a growing presence of computer science (CS) in K-8 classrooms. This poster presents findings from a survey of 130 K-8 teachers from Chicago Public Schools (CPS) about the state of ...
Introducing Computer Science to Education Faculty: Teach the Teacher Educators
Papers of the 38th Annual CCSC Eastern Conference

This paper describes a collaborative project that was conducted to promote the Computer Science (CS) and Computation Thinking (CT) Education among Education Faculties. 9 Education Faculties from three local and regional schools participated in a ...

Comments

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

SIGCSE '01: Proceedings of the thirty-second SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer Science Education

February 2001

456 pages

ISBN:1581133294

DOI:10.1145/364447

Chairmen:
Henry Walker
Grinnell College
,
Renée McCauley
College of Charleston
,
Judith Gersting
Univ. of Hawaii at Hilo
,
Ingrid Russell
Univ. of Hartford

ACM SIGCSE Bulletin Volume 33, Issue 1
March 2001
432 pages
ISSN:0097-8418
DOI:10.1145/366413
Editor:
John Impagliazzo
103 Hofstra Univ., Hempstead, NY
Issue’s Table of Contents

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 February 2001

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Qualifiers

Article

Conference

SIGCSE01

Sponsor:

SIGCSE

SIGCSE01: 32nd SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

North Carolina, Charlotte, USA

Acceptance Rates

SIGCSE '01 Paper Acceptance Rate 78 of 225 submissions, 35%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 1,595 of 4,542 submissions, 35%

Upcoming Conference

SIGCSE TS 2025

Sponsor:
sigcse

The 56th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

February 26 - March 1, 2025

Pittsburgh , PA , USA

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

15
Total Citations
View Citations
1,675
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)176
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)14

Reflects downloads up to 27 Dec 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View all

Yang SBaird MO’Rourke EBrennan KSchneider B(2024)Decoding Debugging Instruction: A Systematic Literature Review of Debugging InterventionsACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/369065224:4(1-44)Online publication date: 5-Sep-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3690652
Gourdine DMatthews S(2023)An Open-Source BinaryGame for Learning Reverse EngineeringJournal of Computing Sciences in Colleges10.5555/3606402.360641938:8(136-145)Online publication date: 1-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3606402.3606419
Railing B(2023)CADSS: Computer Architecture Design Simulator for StudentsProceedings of the Workshop on Computer Architecture Education10.1145/3605507.3610626(34-40)Online publication date: 17-Jun-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3605507.3610626
Railing BMerkle LDoyle MSheard JSoh LDorn B(2022)Exam TimeProceedings of the 53rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 210.1145/3478432.3499123(1138-1138)Online publication date: 3-Mar-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3478432.3499123
Kirdani-Ryan MKo AMerkle LDoyle MSheard JSoh LDorn B(2022)The House of Computing: Integrating Counternarratives into Computer Systems EducationProceedings of the 53rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education - Volume 110.1145/3478431.3499394(279-285)Online publication date: 22-Feb-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3478431.3499394
Ai LDeng YZhou YFeng H(2021)RUE: A caching method for identifying and managing hot data by leveraging resource utilization efficiencySoftware: Practice and Experience10.1002/spe.296351:11(2252-2273)Online publication date: 9-Mar-2021
https://doi.org/10.1002/spe.2963
Railing BBryant RBarnes TGarcia DHawthorne EPérez-Quiñones M(2018)Implementing MallocProceedings of the 49th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education10.1145/3159450.3159597(104-109)Online publication date: 21-Feb-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3159450.3159597
Desnoyers PCortina TWalker EKing LMusicant D(2011)Teaching operating systems as how computers workProceedings of the 42nd ACM technical symposium on Computer science education10.1145/1953163.1953249(281-286)Online publication date: 9-Mar-2011
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1953163.1953249
Norris CWilkes JJohn DKerr S(2007)YESSProceedings of the 45th annual ACM Southeast Conference10.1145/1233341.1233369(150-155)Online publication date: 23-Mar-2007
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1233341.1233369
Anguita MFernandez-Baldomero F(2007)Software Optimization for Improving Student Motivation in a Computer Architecture CourseIEEE Transactions on Education10.1109/TE.2007.90660350:4(373-378)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2007
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/TE.2007.906603
Show More Cited By

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Cited By

Index Terms

Recommendations

Introducing computer systems from a programmer's perspective

Introducing Computer Science into K-8 Classrooms: Teachers' Perspectives from a Large, Urban School District

Introducing Computer Science to Education Faculty: Teach the Teacher Educators