Computer Science 333S:
Special Topics in Distributed Applications

Course Description

This is a project-based course in which undergraduate students work alone and in small groups to develop interactive distributed applications from modular software building blocks. Several distributed application paradigms are explored.

Students use The Programmers' Playground, a programming environment based on a novel approach to the construction of distributed applications. Playground provides graphics tools for configuring distributed applications, as well as for constructing direct-manipulation graphical user interfaces for them. Projects include distributed interactive simulations, group collaboration, pipelined image processing, and distributed multiplayer games. Specific projects are listed below.

Instructor:
Ken Goldman, Jolley 512, 935-7542, kjg@cs.wustl.edu
Office hours: Fridays 3:00-4:30 and by appointment.

Teaching Assistants:

Students:
Dennis Angelisanti, dla2@cec
Marin Bezic, mpb2@cec
Danyel Fisher, daf1@cec
Scott Haug, sth2@cec
Matt Hempey, mdh2@cec
Andrew Koransky, andrew@ecl
Scott MacDonald, srm2@cec
Todd Rodgers, tr1@cec
Merl Schmits, mds1@cec

Class Meetings:
Mondays and Wednesdays, 3:00-4:30 in Lopata 401E.

Evaluation:
All evaluation is based on the laboratory projects.
There will be no other homeworks or exams.

Prerequisites:

Projects: (subject to change)
  1. Producer/Consumer: Configuration of Asynchronous Systems
  2. Distributed Program Visualization: Mystery Program
  3. Process Control: Syrup Factory
  4. Distributed Multiplayer Games: Air Hockey
  5. Client/Server: Stock Market
  6. Computer-Supported Collaborative Work: Shared Spreadsheet
  7. Collaborative Simulation: Iterating Spreadsheet
  8. Distributed Pipelines: Medical Image Processing
  9. Final Project

See the course syllabus for a tentative schedule.

Last modified: February 3, 1995 by Ken Goldman, kjg@cs.wustl.edu