Aim
The main purpose of the course is that the students should learn a methodology to find a suitable version of an algorithm and to maximise its performance when implementing it. To reach this main purpose, there are two other purposes of the course, that students shall have knowledge about (1) the C99 programming language with focus on which language features that often become efficient and/or affect portability, and (2) modern computer architecture from the view of the programmer, with focus on microprocessors and cache memories.

Knowledge and understanding
For a passing grade the student must

• understand how modern microprocessors are implemented with pipelining and understand which consequences for performance this lead to for the programmer,

• understand how cache memories work and understand which consequences for performance this lead to for the programmer, and

• understand how language features, eg using pointers, can be translated to machine code and how that affects performance.

Skills and abilities
For a passing grade the student must

• be able to write software in the C99 programming language,

• with the help of modern tools, be able to analyse the performance of C programs, and

• be able to maximise performance by modifying the program based on the information the performance analysis tools provide.

Contents
ISO C99, the GNU GDB debugger, Valgrind, the profiling tools GPROF and GCOV, pipelined microprocessors, cache memories, using simulation tools for performance analysis, implementation of mathematical functions on processors with and without hardware support for floating-point arithmetic.

Literature
Samuel P. Harbison/Guy L. Steele: "C A Reference Manual", 5th edition, 2002, Prentice-Hall, ISBN 0-13-122560-X. Material from the Department.