6.824 - Spring 2006

General Information

Structure // Grading policy // Class meetings // Staff // Office Hours // Useful Books

Structure

6.824 is a core graduate subject with lectures, labs, quizzes, and a final project. 6.824 is 12 units. 6 EDPs.

Lectures are Tue/Thu 1:00pm to 2:30pm in 32-144. Most class meetings will be one half lecture and one half paper discussion. You should read the paper before coming to class, and be prepared to discuss it. You can find out what paper to read for each meeting in the schedule.

We will post a question about each paper 24 hours before we discuss the paper. Please bring your answer to class on a sheet of paper and hand it in. Your answer need only be long enough to demonstrate that you understand the paper; a paragraph or two will usually be enough. We won't hand back the questions, but we will glance at them to make sure your answer makes sense, and they will count for part of the paper discussion grade.

6.824 will have two in-class quizzes.

There are programming labs due every week or two for the first half of the term.

In the second half of the term you'll undertake a project in small teams. Each team will design and implement a system of its choice. Each team will also write a research paper about its project.

Grading

Grade for this class will be based on:

25% labs (programming assignments)
40% project (programming and paper)
25% quizzes
10% paper discussion participation and paper questions

The late policy for programming assignments is as follows. You can hand assignments in late, but the total amount of lateness summed over all the assignments must not exceed 72 hours. If you hand in an assignment late, and your total late time (include the late time for that assignment) exceeds 72 hours, we will give that assignment a grade of D. Note that a D is better than the grade you'd get if you handed in nothing. You can divide up your 72 hours among the assignments however you like; you don't have to ask or tell us. If you want an exception to this rule, please bring us a letter from a dean.

Collaboration policy

You must write all the code you hand in for the programming assignments, except for code that we give you as part of the assigment. You are not allowed to look at anyone else's solution (and you're not allowed to look at solutions from previous years). You may discuss the assignments with other students, but you may not look at or use each other's code.

You may discuss the questions for each discussion paper with other students, but you may not look at other student's answers. You must write your answer yourself.

Class meetings

6.824 meets TR 1-2:30 in 32-144.

Staff

Lecturer Robert Morris	32-G972	3-5983	rtm@csail.mit.edu

Teaching assistant Emil Sit	32-G982	3-7341	6.824-staff@pdos.lcs.mit.edu

Course secretary Neena Lyall	32-G970A	3-6019	lyall@csail.mit.edu

Office hours

Office hours are on Fridays from 1-2pm or by appointment. They will be held in the PDOS lounge on the 9th floor lounge of the Gates Tower in the Stata Center (32-G975). If no one is there, please check the TA's office.

Useful Books

The following books may help provide background for 6.824 or help with lab programming. None of them are required. They are listed in rough order of usefulness.

UNIX Network Programming. Volume 1: Networking APIs: Sockets and XTI. W. Richard Stevens.
Modern Operating Systems. Andrew Tanenbaum. Prentice Hall.
Distributed Systems: Principles and Paradigms, Andrew Tanenbaum and Maarten van Steen, Prentice Hall.
The Design and Implementation of the 4.4 BSD Operating System. Marshall Kirk McKusick, Keith Bostic, Michael J. Karels, John S. Quarterman.
The C++ Programming Language. Bjarne Stroustrup. Addison Wesley.
Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment. W. Richard Stevens.

Questions or comments regarding 6.824? Send e-mail to 6.824-staff@pdos.lcs.mit.edu.

Top // 6.824 home //