Combining Theory and Implementation: A Proposed Course on Distributed Computing

Universities typically offer graduate-level courses in computer science that focus either on implementing software systems or on the theoretical foundations of these systems. In such an environment students who enjoy programming select elective courses that focus on software implementation. Likewise, students who enjoy theoretical topics select elective courses that focus on foundational topics. The result is a set of graduating students who are either good programmers, but lack the theoretical foundations supporting the programming concepts, or good theoreticians who lack the ability to implement software systems well. We believe computer science graduates should be proficient at both theory and implementation. One of the graduate-level theory courses offered at Clemson University is The Foundations of Distributed Computing (CpSc 873). We outline a new syllabus based on this course where not only are the theoretical foundations taught, but also a concrete implementation of the algorithms developed.