Reading Journal: Perspectives on System Languages and Abstraction

Please watch the entire talk by Barbara Liskov (available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp1oRAVAXRg) and answer the following questions. Send your responses to the instructor by email with the subject [Advanced OS] Reading Journal: Liskov. You may want to answer the first question before watching the video. Your answers to each question should be written in paragraph form, roughly 2–5 sentenences each. Please review your responses for spelling and grammatical errors before sending them, and make a final editing pass to ensure your thoughts are clearly expressed and organized before sending them.

Who are we hearing from?

Who is Barbara Liskov, and why would someone invite her to speak about OS research history?

A Familiar Idea

The talk covers many abstractions/key ideas. Choose one that you have experience with and answer the following questions:

1. What idea/abstraction did you choose, and why did you choose it?
2. Liskov’s talk is meant to highlight impactful ideas. What impact has this idea had? You may use examples from the talk or from your own reading and experience.
3. Liskov describes many challenges during the talk. Take one of her examples that connects with your chosen idea and try to explain it in a way that a CSC 213 student should be able to understand.

A New Idea

I expect some of the abstractions/ideas in the talk are new to you, or at least less familiar than some others. Choose one of the less-familiar ideas that interests you, and use it to answer the following questions:

1. Which unfamiliar idea/abstraction did you choose, and why does it interest you?
2. Where do you think this idea would be useful? If you can think of a case where this idea may have helped you, feel free to use an example from your own experience.

Bonus (just for fun)

We hear one question at the end of the talk from Margo, and the answer references Butler. Who do you think Margo and Butler are?