Teaching Operating Systems with Tracing

It's deeply gratifying to see Robert and George use DTrace to teach operating systems: all three of us on the DTrace team had TA'd our operating systems course at school[1], and one of our unspoken goals with DTrace was to offer for educators a pedagogical tool that could potentially be used to revolutionize operating systems education. It's profoundly satisfying to see them realize this dream[2]: good on them, and may it serve to educate a new generation of software engineers!

[1] http://dtrace.org/blogs/bmc/2007/05/06/the-inculcation-of-sy...

[2] http://bsdtalk.blogspot.com/2015/12/bsdtalk260-teachbsdorg-w...

I wonder if programming should be taught the same way. Not with writing programs. But reading real ones that you use every day.

You'd have to be careful about what programs you start a beginner with, but I think their might be value to this approach. I at least know I have reached the point in my own development where I learn more from reading others code than I do from reading textbooks. And learning to read others code, trace through programs, etc. is an incredibly important skill that I think is blatantly overlooked in most introductory level books on programming.

Good shit, good shit! I bought that book they mention when it came out and have been reading it at my own pace. I love that book. Look forward to trying out this course material.

videos please!