[ Home ]
[ Schedule ]
[ Research ]
[ Classes ]
 

Assignment 9

I've chosen Computer Security by Dieter Gollmann as the textbook for my course.
  1. This book has excellent coverage of the material that I want to include in my course. There is a lot of breadth here, but it provides a good stub which I could easily supplement with papers or other materials.
  2. The order in which the topics is presented is slightly different from what I chose, but I very much like the style of the exercises.
  3. There's more here on practical security implementation than I had planned to include. It could provide a good starting point for labs or projects.
  4. The explanations and examples are quite good and take advantage of typesetting and diagrams.
  5. The exercises in this book are very much in line with the kinds of questions that I've generated for my previous homeworks. They appear at the end of each chapter and there are enough to supplement the text, but not enough to be a workbook. This quantity seems about right to me.
  6. The book covers much of what I'd like to present, so I don't imagine needing much in the way of supplementary materials, given the depth of the course. It has excellent suggested readings at the end of each chapter. I might consider offering some readings on static analysis which do not appear to be featured here.
  7. This book has a few portions which could be used for reference, but I would view it mainly as a textbook.
  8. My hope is to cover most of the topics presented in the book, so I would think that it would be difficult to reuse as the primary text in a subsequent course.

For the most part, I agree with the given ordering. I don't really know what to make of 'innovations that you might take advantage of', so I'm not sure about its placement. Parts e.-h., I agree with as being at the bottom of my range of importance, but I would place d. clarity of examples and explanations as the second most important criterion. If the book offers a clear and consistent approach, even if it differs somewhat from mine, I would probably use it. There is a danger of confusing the students, but in case my approach doesn't reach some people, it's nice to have a backup with clear explanations.