CST334 Module 1

What did I learn in the first week of CST334?

This week I learned about six different topics about operating systems. The first topic is about what operating systems are, going over their importance in hardware and software, showcasing key responsibilities of operating systems through process management, memory management, file systems, and device management. The biggest takeaway from the first topic was about how operating systems create abstractions (files, processes, and memory spaces) to simplify complex hardware interactions. The second topic was about computer architecture. I not only learned about the hierarchy of memory, but also the terminology and meaning behind CPU's, registers, RAM, cache, and buses. The biggest takeaway from the second topic was about how hardware components interact to execute programs, while doing so through a memory hierarchy (registers – cache – RAM – disk).

The third topic was about Linux and PowerShell. I learned through instructor Ogden's lecture on core commands like cd, ls, pwd, cat, and man. The key takeaway from the third topic was the concept of users, permissions, and process control in Linex. The fourth topic was about programming with C, as it dealt with how to understand system-level language, while understanding how to debug, manage memory, and work with pointers. The key takeaway from the fourth topic was over pointers, dynamic memory, and arrays/strings. The fifth topic was an introduction of the command line, which went over flags, arguments, and shell conventions. The key takeaway from the fifth topic was about the command syntax. The final topic was over math addendum, reviewing how to calculate binary, hexadecimal, and the representation of the two through symbols and math. The key takeaways of the final topic were on how bitwise operators manipulate data and how to connect math operations to memory management, file permissions, and system flags.