COMP3151/9154 Course Outline

In this course you will learn about the foundational concepts of concurrent programs (including multi-threaded, parallel, and distributed programs) and the crucial abstractions used to implement or understand behaviour of concurrent programs. Classical problems arising in concurrent programs will be examined and solutions to these problems will be analysed. Practical work will include proofs of program properties, plus some programming in a concurrent programming language (Java or a suitable alternative) with simultaneous model checking.

You need to have successfully completed the core programming, algorithm, and discrete mathematics courses.

The course makes use of a number of discrete mathematics concepts. You may find the course very difficult without MATH1081 or equivalent discrete mathematics background.

After successfully completing this course, you are able to

• design and implement multi-threaded, parallel, and distributed programs,
• talk, write, and reason about such programs, and
• appreciate the complexities involved in the previous two.

This course also contributes to the development of the following graduate capabilities:

• Scholars capable of independent and collaborative enquiry, rigorous in their analysis, critique and reflection, and able to innovate by applying their knowledge and skills to the solution of novel as well as routine problems
• Entrepreneurial leaders capable of initiating and embracing innovation and change, as well as engaging and enabling others to contribute to change
• Professionals capable of ethical, self-directed practice and independent lifelong learning
• Global citizens who are culturally adept and capable of respecting diversity and acting in a socially just and responsible way

The learning focus in this course is primarily on lectures, homework, and assignments. While marks are assigned to the homework, their primary purpose is to give you concrete tasks with deadlines to help you structure your learning.

• The lectures will introduce you to new material, which is being reinforced and practised in the assignments and homework. The course draws on two main textbooks for material, listed later in this document. More reading material covering specific topics will be identified throughout the course. Students are required to study reading material as advised during the lecture and/or on the course web page.
• There are eight homeworks released throughout the course. They will be a series of questions that keep you up to date with course content and structure your learning. Feedback will be provided by the tutor to help you identify problems in your learning. It's expected that you will do this homework alone, to maximise its value to you as a learning resource. Don't cheat yourself by plagiarising or using generative AI. More information on plagiarism is provided below. Homework solutions will be discussed in tutorial. You will be given a participation mark for homework based on (a) your written solutions submitted and (b) your ability to present your solution if called on to do so in tutorials.
• There will be two assignments released throughout the course, worth 20% each. The two main assignments will be done in pairs.

Part of concurrency appreciation is getting the opportunity to put concurrency theory into practice solving real concurrent programming problems. We will introduce theory in lectures, and provide a mixture of theory and practical components in homeworks and assignments. This way, students will have many opportunities to apply their skills.

The Student Code of Conduct (Information) sets out what the University expects from students as members of the UNSW community. As well as the learning, teaching and research environment, the University aims to provide an environment that enables students to achieve their full potential and to provide an experience consistent with the University's values and guiding principles. A condition of enrolment is that students inform themselves of the University's rules and policies affecting them, and conduct themselves accordingly.

In particular, students have the responsibility to observe standards of equity and respect in dealing with every member of the University community. This applies to all activities on UNSW premises and all external activities related to study and research. This includes behaviour in person as well as behaviour on social media, for example Facebook groups set up for the purpose of discussing UNSW courses or course work. Behaviour that is considered in breach of the Student Code Policy as discriminatory, sexually inappropriate, bullying, harassing, invading another's privacy or causing any person to fear for their personal safety is serious misconduct and can lead to severe penalties, including suspension or exclusion from UNSW.

If you have any concerns, you may raise them with your lecturer, or approach the School Ethics Officer, Grievance Officer, or one of the student representatives.

Plagiarism is defined as using the words or ideas of others and presenting them as your own. UNSW and CSE treat plagiarism as academic misconduct, which means that it carries penalties as severe as being excluded from further study at UNSW. There are several on-line sources to help you understand what plagiarism is and how it is dealt with at UNSW:

• Plagiarism and Academic Integrity
• UNSW Plagiarism Procedure
• UNSW ChatGPT Reminder

Make sure that you read and understand these. Ignorance is not accepted as an excuse for plagiarism. In particular, you are also responsible that your assignment files are not accessible by anyone but you by setting the correct permissions in your CSE directory and code repository, if using. Note also that plagiarism includes paying or asking another person to do a piece of work for you and then submitting it as your own work. Submission of material produced using generative AI is not permitted in this course. If you have used translation tools to produce your homework, credit these tools.

UNSW has an ongoing commitment to fostering a culture of learning informed by academic integrity. All UNSW staff and students have a responsibility to adhere to this principle of academic integrity. Plagiarism undermines academic integrity and is not tolerated at UNSW. Plagiarism at UNSW is defined as using the words or ideas of others and passing them off as your own.

The page below describes UNSW policies and procedures in more detail:

• UNSW Policies and Procedures

In particular, see the following documents available on the above page for the current policies and procedures.

• Student Code of Conduct
• Student Misconduct Procedure
• Plagiarism Policy Statement

• 40% Assignments
  • Assignment 1: 20%
  • Assignment 2: 20%
• 10% Homework/Participation
• 50% Final Examination (with a pass hurdle)

To pass the course, you will be required to attain a pass mark (25/50) in the Final Examination.

Homeworks in this course are a formative assessment. Since homework solutions will be discussed in the tutorial immediately following the submission deadline, no extensions will be granted on homework. Your homeworks will receive a "participation" mark on the following basis: to attain full marks you will be required to (a) submit satisfactory attempts at written solutions for at least 6/8 of the homeworks, AND (b) be able to present your solution to the class when called upon to do so by the tutor. You will not be penalised for the answer you present being incorrect - the tutor will correct you if it is not, but you will be expected to understand your own answer well enough to be able to present it. Selection of students to present in a tutorial will be random. You should expect to be called upon to present multiple times in the course of the session. Less than fully satisfactory participation will be graded at the discretion of the tutor, and you will be given notice during session if you are not performing at a satisfactory level.

Requests for extension of the Assignment deadlines will be considered only through the central Special Consideration process.

The following is a tentative course schedule, which will evolve during the semester.

The course has no textbook, but a lot of it is based on the following books, which you may peruse for background reading. They're sorted in descending order of readability.

• M. Ben-Ari, Principles of Concurrent and Distributed Programming, 2nd edition, Addison-Wesley, 2005.
• A.B. Downey, The Little Book of Semaphores, Green Tea Press. https://greenteapress.com/wp/semaphores/
• W.P. de Roever et al., Concurrency Verification: Introduction to Compositional and Noncompositional Methods, Cambridge 2012.

This course is evaluated each session using the myExperience system.

In the previous offering of this course, students generally gave positive feedback. In 2022, the course ran without tutorials, and there was a frequent request that tutorials be added. This has been done for the 2023 edition.