[Haifux] [W2L] Call for lecturer + "Linux guru"

[Vadim Eisenberg]

guy keren wrote:
> you can mention memory leaks if you want - but students don't care about them so much, because it doesn't break their programs.

Starting from the Winter 2008-2009 semester, the memory leaks are checked in Matam (Introduction to Systems Programming) course and 1 point is reduced for each leak. The check is done automatically, using, guess what, valgrind. So the students in Matam actually care very much about the memory leaks.

Vadim

-----Original Message-----
From: haifux-bounces at haifux.org [mailto:haifux-bounces at haifux.org] On Behalf Of guy keren
Sent: Friday, October 16, 2009 9:47 AM
To: Eli Billauer
Cc: Haifa Linux Club
Subject: Re: [Haifux] [W2L] Call for lecturer + "Linux guru"

Eli Billauer wrote:
> guy keren wrote:
> 
>>
>> what - no valgrind?
>>
> I stand corrected. A quick demonstration of valgrind (show how it 
> detects memory leaks and access to unallocated/uninitialized memory) 
> is in place. It's definitely something handy for a student, and it's 
> so simple to use.
> 
>   Eli
> 

i think the best demo for valgrind would be:

1. this step should be done at home: write a program that has a non-obvious problem with corrupting its memory (make sure that when you run it, it actually crashes)

2. the next steps will be done during the demonstration: show it to the people (the source, how the program crashes, and how you fail to find the problem even when the crash is done inside gdb)

3. show them how you find the bug within seconds using valgrind.

you can mention memory leaks if you want - but students don't care about them so much, because it doesn't break their programs. they do care about memory corruption if it indeed causes their program to crash.

--guy
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