Monday, June 7, 2010

CS 403: Advanced Computer Architecture

That this course is inappropriate for second year students of the CSE course of WBUT became even more evident to me couple of days back.Their finals are almost on them and some had questions about interconnection networks and how they are used in example systems.

For example there was one question about the ILIAC IV machine. The course also has mentions of the connection machine and other super computers. Possibly the best method for study of such systems is through assignments to different groups and presentation to the whole class.

Students who do not even have an exposure to the OS, programming, let alone issues involved in parallel programming will have such a hard time understanding the issues. So they will resort to rote learning and the whole purpose is defeated. Prescribing advanced Architecture for second year students is absolutely wrong!