CS 395
Syllabus
Fall 1995
The Instructor
The analog version of
Jeff Ondich
can often be found in CMC 327. His office phone number is 663-4364,
and his home number is 663-7123. His office hours for the fall
term of 1995 are: Monday 5A, Tuesday 2:00-3:00, Wednesday 2A, and
Friday 2A.
Books
The textbook for this class is
Understanding Data Communications and Networks, by William
Shay, PWS Publishing, 1995. It provides a good overview of the
subjects we will be covering during most of the class. It does not
discuss the implementation-dependent details of client/server
programming. Good resources for these details include
Internetworking with TCP/IP, Volume 3, BSD Socket Version,
by Douglas Comer and David Stevens, Prentice Hall, 1993, and
Unix Network Programming, by W. Richard Stevens, Prentice
Hall, 1990.
Other good general references include Data Networks, 2e,
by Dimitri Bertsekas and Robert Gallagher, Prentice Hall, 1992,
Computer Networks, 2e, by Andrew Tanenbaum, Prentice Hall, 1989,
and Communication Networks: A First Course, by Jean Walrand,
Aksen Associates, 1991.
On-line Resources
Ethics
It's important to experiment with the Internet if you wish
to understand how it functions. I expect your experimentation
to be done with respect for the privacy and property rights
of other people and institutions. Don't wander into ethical
gray areas. Neither Carleton nor I will put up with it.
If you have an experiment you want to try, but you think it
could be viewed as a security risk, talk to Mike Tie or me first
(and preferably both of us).
Your Grade
Your grade in the course will be determined by your performance
on two exams (25% each), a final project (20%), and homework (30%).
(It is also likely that we will have a guest speaker during the
term, in which case I will multiply your cumulative score
by the number of guest speakers' talks you have attended.)
Homework will include book exercises, some client/server
programming, and protocol implementations for the
cnet system.
For your final project, you will research a special topic and
present your findings in the form of a Web page. During the
final exam period, we will have a public poster session, where
the "posters" are on-line.
The Schedule
This is the approximate schedule for the course. As time passes,
this on-line schedule will adapt to what has really happened.
F 9/8 Introduction to protocols and layered network
architectures.
M 9/11 Standards, organizational structure of the Internet,
a look at a real protocol specification: finger
(RFC 1288).
WF 9/13-15 A brief introduction to data compression.
MW 9/18-20 A brief introduction to error-detection and correction.
F 9/20-22 A brief introduction to encryption and authentication.
MWF 9/25-29 Modems. Serial communication. RS-232.
10/2... Two weeks or so on data link and network layer algorithms.
During this time, we'll use the
cnet network simulator
developed by Chris McDonald of the University of Western Australia.
M 10/9 Midterm Break.
W 10/18 In-class midterm exam.
MWF 10/11-20 A week on the details of client/server programming using
the "Berkeley sockets" programming interface.
MWF 10/23-27 Introduction to TCP/IP.
10/30... More TCP/IP, a guest lecturer, miscellaneous topics
Jeff Ondich,
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science,
Carleton College, Northfield, MN
55057
(507) 663-4364,
jondich@carleton.edu