Re: OS University Course
Posted: Mon Nov 24, 2008 3:34 am
Hi,
James
What's so wrong with object-oriented code for a beginner? "C-style" object orientation in C is fairly fundamental to creating readable programs - objectless idioms are available but that would leave you without the ability to use structs, so why would you reccommend that for a teaching course?good to see your teaching OS Design, why not build your own skeleton and have them work on that? If you are in a time crunch then I'd go with the most non-object oriented code you could find, so stay away from FreeBSD code or Linux code, (puke). Are you going to teach the bootstrap loader or use GRUB? I'd use GRUB for teaching I guess because it might be a whole semester just with that, but kick that around for 300 levels. I would stay away from the tanenbaum books, his code is object oriented and nasty. But I hear that some Uni's once used his books for teaching, so whatever its nasty. Perhaps you should pin-point a specific aspect such as PCI or a certain controller like FDC to start. The whole thing in 3 months is too fast.
I bet it takes you more time to read a book about operating systems theory and understand it than it takes me to read and understand a FDC datasheet. The best university courses are more theory based, because technologies come and go and teaching students just one language, or just very specific details of something can leave them without any relevant knowledge at all in a few years time.I could check out a book for that.
James
