COMS 4995 Advanced Systems Programming

Spring 2026

COMS 4995-004: Mon & Wed 2:40-3:55pm, ~~633 Mudd~~ 209 Havemeyer Hall
Two synchronous and in-person exams:
- Exam 1: Wednesday March 25, 2:40-3:55pm
- Exam 2: Monday, May 4, 2:40-3:55pm
- No final exam
There are no make-up or alternate exams. If you cannot make any of those exams, please take the course next semester.
Instructor: Jae Woo Lee
Office hours:
- Jae’s office hours
- TA office hours
REQUIRED READING: ACADEMIC HONESTY POLICIES
Anonymous feedback form
Attendance form
4157 Dev Guides

HW Due Dates

Date	Assignment
F 1/23	HW0 due
R 2/12	HW1 due

Course Schedule

Lecture 1: W 1/21

Course overview and logistics

Lecture:
- L00-overview
Assignments:
1. Subscribe to cs4157@lists.cs.columbia.edu – see L00 above
2. Read the following two documents:
  - http://www.cs.columbia.edu/education/honesty
  - http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~jae/honesty.html
3. HW0 (50 points, individual assignment) – due Fri 1/23, 11:59pm
  
  Send an email to Jae containing:
  - To: jae@cs.columbia.edu
  - Subject: “[4157] hw0-UNI” – without quotes, sole space before hw0, UNI replaced with your actual UNI in lowercase
  - Your name, major & school program, year – ex) Jae Woo Lee, Physics, Columbia College, class of 1994
  - Your pledge – see http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~jae/honesty.html
  - CS classes taken and/or other programming background
  - Optionally anything else you want to let us know
  - Optionally attach a picture of you, but please reduce image file size to about 100KB
4. Start forming your group of up to three people

Git Overview and Internals

Reading (optional)
- Pro Git, entirely free online
  - Ch. 2: Git Basics
  - Ch. 3: Git Branching
  - Ch. 10: Git Internals
Lecture:
- L01-git-version-control

Lecture 2: M 1/26

Git Overview and Internals (continued)

Lecture:
- L01-git-version-control

HW1: malloctopus

100 points, due Thu 2/12
- malloctopus

Lecture 3: W 1/28

Git Overview and Internals (continued)

Lecture:
- L01-git-version-control

GitHub

Reading (optional)
- Pro Git, entirely free online
  - Ch. 6: GitHub
Lecture
- L01-git-version-control

Lecture 4: M 2/2

Introduction to Memory Allocators

Reading
- CSAPP 9.1, 9.9 (skip 9.9.12)
Lecture:
- L02-memory-1

Lecture 5: W 2/4

Introduction to Memory Allocators (continued)

Lecture:
- L02-memory-1

Caching, Memory Mapping, and Advanced Allocators

Reading
- Caching: CSAPP 6.1 (optional), 6.2, 6.3, 6.4 (optional), 6.5, 6.6 (skim 6.6.1, read 6.6.2-3)
- Memory mapping: APUE 14.8: read page 525-527 (skim the rest), 15.9: page 576-578
- Allocators: CSAPP 9.9.13-14, APUE 7.8 “Alternative Memory Allocators”
Lecture
- L03-memory-2

Lecture 6: M 2/9

Caching, Memory Mapping, and Advanced Allocators (continued)

Lecture
- L03-memory-2
Source code
- Makefile
- sum1.c, sum2.c
- mult-ijk.c, mult-kji.c, mult-ikj.c

Lecture 7: W 2/11

Processes

Reading
- APUE 8.1-8.10 (8.4, 8.7, 8.8 optional)
Lecture:
- L04-process-control
Source code
- Makefile
- shell1.c

Signals

Reading:
- APUE 9.4 - 9.6: skim, just to get a sense of process group, session, and controlling terminal
- APUE 9.7: skim pages 299-301, skip rest – just to get a sense of jobs running in foreground and background
- APUE 10.1 - 10.6 (skim signal descriptions in 10.2)
- APUE 10.8 - 10.9
- APUE 10.10: you can skip pages 340-341 & 343 (but interesting read if you know setjmp() / longjmp() or willing to find out)
- APUE 10.11 - 10.13
- APUE 10.14: skip page pages 352-353
Lecture:
- L05-signals
Source code:
- Makefile
- shell2.c

Lecture 8: M 2/16

Signals (continued)

Lecture:
- L05-signals
Source code:
- Makefile
- read1.c

File I/O

Reading:
- APUE 3.1 - 3.13
- APUE chapter 5 (skim)
Lecture:
- L06-file-io
Source code:
- Makefile
- io.c
- std-io.c

Lecture 9: W 2/18

File I/O (continued)

Lecture:
- L06-file-io
Source code:

POSIX threads

Reading:
- APUE 11.1 - 11.4
- APUE 11.5: read page 388-393; skip the rest of 11.5
- APUE 11.6: read up to (and including) 11.6.6
Lecture:
- L07-thread
Source code:
- Makefile
- bank0.c
- bank1.c

Last updated: 2026-02-09