Jeff, thanks for the input. Comer has a volume 3 that uses Winsock instead of BSD sockets. Stevens UNIX network programming 3rd edition added XTI, I don't know why. Market -- always a problem to have a pool of eligible students but its a hot topic. A co-requisite of our Operating Systems course, which is required, isn't too limiting -- gives a pool of about 60 students (the 30 taking the fall, the 30 taking the spring; not too many who took it last spring will be around next spring). I can't take more than 30, would rather have 20. Hunter is big on C++ but I found out that they don't teach methodology despite calling the courses software engineering. Its really the same course as it was when they used Pascal, only now they use C++. If I get up in front of class and start drawing use-case diagrams, nobody will know what I'm talking about. so much for a class-wide project in the large. I'm going for the Comer vol. 1 course, plus sockets. Thanks again, Dana ----- Original Message ----- From: Jeff Parker <jparker@nexabit.com> To: Dana Hudes <dhudes@panix.com> Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 1999 9:47 AM Subject: RE: Training the next generation:

Dana - I teach a course here at the Harvard Extension school similar in aims to your 2nd course here. I've been using Steven's Unix Network Programming plus lecture notes that cover some of the Internet Protocols (ARP, BootP, ... RPC, NFS, AFS, ...)

I don't cover much about TCP - other than a lecture that includes MTU discovery and Slow Start. Some of this is that our first semester course covers sliding window, etc. However, ours is a very market-driven course (that is, I don't have a natural market, so I can't scare folks off with prereqs) I cannot assume too much.

Lately, I've been finding that our students don't know enough about Unix and Unix System Programming to deal with Stevens: I've switch the language from C to Java, and I'm using a Java text to teach sockets programming, as well as using Stevens TCP/IP Illustrated to teach the protocols.

The project has always been a client/server system: we start with a simple name server with 3 operations: Insert, Delete, and GetNext, and deal with issues such as packet loss (I give them a "flakey sendto" that drops 2 packets out of 5, and introduces duplicate packets) and transactions (to deal with a "rename" (delete and insert) encountering a getNet walk.

Depending upon the background, the setup (how does their bridge send/rcv packets, what they have to observe traffic - sniffer?) I would think that your bridge assignment would be challenging.

I'd be interested to chat about your course: here is a link to last semester's website.

http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~adm119/cs258/

- jeff parker

...

2. Network application programming. Java clients, Perl and Apache server side (or perhaps Java servlets). Hunter students know C++ fairly well by their senior year; Java is an easy transition. The entire class would divide into teams with assignments that comprise various parts of the client and server portions. The project would be a turn-based simulation game (I used to play these and have a number of appropriate games with play-by-mail options, game rule design and/or game theory is not part of the course). While this won't teach them to be router engineers -- or developers, it should have some industry relevance.

Most Hunter graduates stay in the Greater NYC metropolitan area. Given this, which of these options is better for the industry? who is in shorter supply?

Prompt feedback greatly appreciated. Registrar is asking for the course description ASAP or sooner.

Thanks! Dana Hudes CUNY Hunter Computer Science former ISP