CS399/499 Undergraduate Readings Course Proposal
Systems Research

I am interested in learning more about the field of Systems Research. Some have
claimed that Systems Research is irrelevant [Pike, 2000], but I do not think
so.  In particular, I'm interested in the design and implementation of
operating systems. What are the modern approaches? What has been done in the
past? Why have certain approaches failed? Why were others successful? What
effects have hardware architecture had on the field? This last question is the
most interesting, especially in its implications for Desktop computers. I'm
more interested in alternative RISC architectures than the ubiquitous (and thus
boring) x86 family. I would also like to explore alternative OS designs that
are not widely used. As a Linux user, I appreciate the power of Unix and the
POSIX standard, but it _is_ a 30-year old design. Furthermore, what are
alternative kernel architectures? What is the history and motivation of
microkernels and exokernels.

However, I do think it's important to review the history and literature of the
field. An understanding of history is important not only for its own sake, it
has pedagogical benefits as well. I would not want to reinvent the wheel or
repeate past mistakes. I want to review what has already been accomplished or
proposed so that I can get a feeling for where the field has been going and
which trends have come up. Therefore, I would like to propose a readings
course. In the course, I would want to attemp to answer some of these questions
by reading and reflecting on selects papers, presentations, textbooks, and
publicly released source code from the field over the past 30 years. I have
some initial ideas for papers (Henry's Massalin's Synthesis Kernel for
example) and topics (the Tanenbaum-Torvalds debate) that I would like to read.
If I could also have your help and advice in selecting and interpreting these
readings, I would be grateful. I believe that an experienced guide can help me
more efficiently cover the literature that is most applicable to my interests
and goals. For this readings course I would propose ten hours per week of
reading and research accompanied by biweekly or perhaps monthly writings. The
purpose of the writings, be they essays or opinion pieces, would be both for me
to demonstrate my understanding of the material and to open the opportunity for
current research topics. I'm strongly considering graduate school, and this
readings course could be an excellent opportunity to discover topics for a URA
or internship. This is, of course, pending your interests and availability. I
would not want to be a burden on your time, but it would be nice to have an
external motivator and sounding board for my ideas.

Thanks for your time, I'm open to your suggestions or ideas!