An Intro Programming Text of a Different Color

For the last several years I have taught Computer Science 1 to majors and non-majors (in separate sections). There are many opinions about the best way to teach this course, ranging from redesign of the course so that it follows Wing's ideas on computational thinking, to discussions relating to which programming language should be used in the course. Many of us have recognized that non-majors have a different motivation for learning about CS1 than do majors.

This has inspired me to try to write an electronic CS1 book about programming principles that is independent of any particular programming language, and which embraces some of the philosophy of cmoputational thinking. I have thought about it enough to think that there is a chance that such a book can be written. The main body of the book focuses on language-independent concepts, while hyperlinks point to language-dependent information, examples, exercises, etc. I do not yet have any draft material ready for public review, but please keep an eye on my University of Colorado web site if you have any interest in this idea. gn

To update the OS textbook or not?

Operating Systems The third edition of Operating Systems was published in 2004. There have been many very loyal users of the book; the publisher and I are now considering the possibility of a fourth edition. If there were a new edition of this book, would you adopt it? Besides updating the lab exercises, what would you do to change, improve, and update the book?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and comments,
Gary

To Update the Linux kernel manual or not?

The first edition of Kernel Projects for Linux was published in 2001, so it was written over a decade ago. The manuscript was prepared for the 2.0.36 kernel, then adapted to the 2.2.12 kernel just as it was being published. The kernel went through some pretty significant changes in 2.4, but of course the magnitude of those changes was dwarfed by the evolution in 2.6 when the kernel became an industrial strength, multiprocessor OS. Many people have used first edition (even with Version 2.6) — I used one of the kernel exercises with 2.6.24 in a VM environment in an undergraduate OS course in Spring 2009.

The first edition of Kernel Projects for Linux was published in 2001, so it was written over a decade ago. The manuscript was prepared for the 2.0.36 kernel, then adapted to the 2.2.12 kernel just as it was being published. The kernel went through some pretty significant changes in 2.4, but of course the magnitude of those changes was dwarfed by the evolution in 2.6 when the kernel became an industrial strength, multiprocessor OS. Many people have used first edition (even with Version 2.6) — I used one of the kernel exercises with 2.6.24 in a VM environment in an undergraduate OS course in Spring 2009.

Thanks in advance for your comments, Gary

Update on the open textbook stuff

Well, it is clear that if I want this to succeed, I am going to have to launch a major marketing campaign.

But, as I suspected, the commercial supplementary site seemed to get lots of play (by reading the web logs on my web page server), mostly from international students -- of course it is summer time. Students spend hours searching the web for the solution to their current homework, or if they can't find that, then they seem to look for simplified explanations that makes it trivial to solve their homework.

The content on my supplementary web site is copyrighted, but free to people who register with me. Originally, I just put polite messages in prominent places asking people to drop me a note if they were reading the material. They ignored me. So about a month ago I split the site into a "sample" set of supplementary materials, and a more comprehensive set that people are required to have a login and password to use. I still get many queries on the sample material, and I have a few people who have registered to use the materials, but basically people just won't register to use the material. Clearly I have to rethink the model for delivering the supplementary materials as well as the open textbook.

Full Draft of Single-threaded SCC OS booklet

OK, I finally have a new draft of the entire manuscript for my web book(let) on operating sysetms for very small, communicating computers. It is an open book, so anyone can read it. (If you want to modify it or derive work from it, you can do so under a Creative Commons license.) Take a look at the manuscript. Please give me your feedback and suggestions for how to let more people know about this (without spamming them).

As mentioned earlier, I am developing a commercial site to provide supplementary materials for this book, as well as for general OS study. Please feel free to review the content. You need to register to use this site, but it is still free to use at this time.

The Open Textbook Project

I have been working on a grassroots effort to do open textbooks. I wrote a proposal for this to an NSF program, but they didn't like the idea as much as I do. The idea is that textbooks are very expensive -- it seems like they cost $100 whether they are a simple paperback or a multicolor hardbound book. Students have revolted; in many of my classes, students simply do not buy a textbook.They use the web, borrow a friend's book, or ??? The book(s) will be published under the Creative Commons license. People can read it without restriction, and they can edit it (using a Linux-like model).

A year or two ago I submitted a manuscript for a book about OS for small, communicating computers (this all started several years agowhen I was thinking about the Palm OS, then WinCE/PocketPC/Mobile, embedded Linux,TinyOS, Mantis OS, etc.). The publisher declined to publish the book because there was no course that defined a market for thebook. I have had some of the material (that is not copyrighted elsewhere) up on a site for a year or so. I have not been happy with that, so I am thinking of ways to repackage it so that it is more useful to people. More on this later ...

The catch is that I am not publishing any exercises, lab exercises, or other supplementary materials with the book. It is the content without the pedagogical tools. The other part of the experiment is to see if content were free, but the pedagogical tools had a modest cost, would this be viable? So the second half of the experiment is the commercial supplement site. I'll keep you posted as things evolve ...