Build a Modern Computer from First Principles: Nand to Tetris Part II (project-centered course)
FREE
Shimon Schocken
In this project–centered course you will build a modern software hierarchy, designed to enable the translation and execution of object–based, high–level languages on a bare–bone computer hardware platform. In particular, you will implement a virtual machine and a compiler for a simple, Java–like programming language, and you will develop a basic operating system that closes gaps between the high–level language and the underlying hardware platform. In the process, you will gain a deep, hands–on understanding of numerous topics in applied computer science, e.g. stack processing, parsing, code generation, and classical algorithms and data structures for memory management, vector graphics, input–output handling, and various other topics that lie at the very core of every modern computer system. This is a self–contained course: all the knowledge necessary to succeed in the course and build the various systems will be given as part of the learning experience. The only prerequisite is knowledge of programming at the level acquired in introduction to computer science courses. All the software tools and materials that are necessary to complete the course will be supplied freely after you enrol in the course. This course is accompanied by the textbook “The Elements of Computing Systems” (Nisan and Schocken, MIT Press). While …
Instructor Details
Courses : 2
Specification: Build a Modern Computer from First Principles: Nand to Tetris Part II (project-centered course)
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46 reviews for Build a Modern Computer from First Principles: Nand to Tetris Part II (project-centered course)
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| Price | Free |
|---|---|
| Provider | |
| Duration | 37 hours |
| Year | 2017 |
| Language | English |
| Certificate | Yes |
| Quizzes | Yes |
FREE
pengwei –
The best introduction of computer science course forever, I will recommend it to others. Thanks.
Max H –
Almost perfect. But writing the compiler and the operating system took me far more than the projected 10 hours. IMHO, part II should be split into two, and a few more words and guides on how to structure a compiler would be preferable. Also, I think that the programming assignments touch project dimensions, so mentioning version control systems might be a good advise. Nevertheless, and without a doubt, a fantastic course given by one of the most ambitious and relentless instructors with great teaching skills and dedication to the topic.
Shuhei K –
This course is life changing, yet the toughest course I’ve ever taken.
Luis G C –
It’s the most amazing course that i’ve ever taken. Thanks Noam and Shimon for your work. I eagerly await the continuation of the course.
Ernesto P –
Excellent course on understanding the fundamental pillars of how computer software works. Great lectures are clear and concise, so much so you can finish the course without using the textbook. Fun and challenging.
foad –
Just as the first part of the course the second course is equally interesting. So much information to learn from this course yet taught in a very student friendly, intuitive and interactive way. Doing the programming exercises makes this course even more exciting. Check it out!
Jun Z –
Great Course! The course becomes so hard for me since week 4 when we started developing compiler. Each assignment I spent 5 hours watching videos and making notes, 10 hours coding, and 10+hours debugging. My feeling: It turns out that although it is: time consuming (I am a master student in environmental management with a full course schedule, projects for week 4,5,6 made me postpone to this section) and mentally challenging (I am not well educated on software design and algorithms so I spent a lot of time debugging my code, fail, edit, fail, edit,..) However, the sense of accomplishment when I finally got 100 for each project (almost) is incomparable, unique, and unparalleled. Love this course! Suggestion Hope we could redesign the week 4,5,6. The workload exponentially increased and reached the maximum in week 5. My strategy was postponing and postponing until I got time to work the assignment out. I hope we could reestimate the workload (maybe separate week 5, 6 into two weeks, perspectively. The videos are 3+ hours long:)) In the end, love this course. Shimon and Noam are excellent instructors, their teaching style is very enlightening, the slide animation is great for illustrating processes clearly.
amosnier –
Fantastic!
Aung H –
actually greatest course ever!
dracula –
Tough, Boring but useful
Marcel S –
This is by far one of the best online courses I have completed. Thumbs up, it was well worth my time and it will definitely help me on my never ending journey of becoming a better software developer.
Qiang K –
This is the life changing course!
Mark V M –
This was a great course which tied together so many loose ends for me. E.g., I knew that OO languages would add a hidden “this” parameter, that compiling would get rid of symbols, that malloc worked with a heap, but now I REALLY know how all that works.
Stephen H –
Great course! Cannot imagine how can I build in two weeks the whole compiling software that translates an OO language down to machine code! Although the part II needs more work than part I, it is still manageable and equally inspiring!
Liudmila N –
Very well structured, you learn a lot, primarily by doing, which is the best learning. The project where you program in Jack is in my opinion unnecessary, and the OS part is just a bag of random stuff, but overall, one of the best courses out there.
James T –
Absolutely phenomenal. One of the best and most instructive courses I’ve taken. This provided a much deeper understanding of computer internals than I’d previously had, and I’m shocked by how much ground was covered in this course. It took a lot of work, and while it is listed as ‘beginner’, I imagine it would be quite challenging to complete without having any experience programming.
Steven G –
This is a brilliant and very challenging project oriented course. Even as a IT professional doing this course for fun the workload can be very demanding. Be prepared to work hard and for long hours to get through this course. But the tremendous feeling of accomplishment at the end makes it all worthwhile. I have not felt this way since my undergraduate days. Thank you for reigniting my passion.
Joe K –
Thank you so much Shimon Schocken!! Part two was tough, but it was very helpful.
TANGELLA L –
Great course
James M –
Overall, it’s an excellent course covering a lot of concepts, definitely the best online course I have done so far. The latter weeks are quite overloaded though, I think it might be better as a slightly longer course, with an additional week focussing on the VM language and the use/history of the stack and heap distinction.
Andrii D –
One of the best computer science courses I ever had. You start understand how actually things like heap, stack, etc. works.
Roshan B –
I’m a 13 year old 8th Grader from California. I loved this course and learned a lot! Thank you Mr.Schocken for putting together such a wonderful course! It was a thrill to finish the course finally!
Benedek R –
It was a bit superficial. Homework helped to practice the basics. I prefer more detailed and more deep lectures.
Ross M –
Challenging but rewarding. About a year ago I started mucking about with code with the aim of becoming a web developing. I started with front end and could get away with knowing next to nothing about how computers actually worked and the big software picture. As my interest grew however I quickly became dispirited because I just didn’t know enough about what was really going on. Now I no longer feel like a fraud teaching myself code. This course was everything I was looking for. My only criticism would be the last project. My implementation of the operating system classes passed the tests however it turned out I had let in some really stupid bugs which the tests didn’t pick up. This led to easily the most frustrating part of the course as I then discovered most of my classes were incompatible. After the best part of another’s weeks work, and several submissions later, I got full marks on the final project. That being said it is probably very difficult to test everything as the classes leave a lot open in terms of implementation. Thanks a lot. It was a great course.
David S –
As great as the first part, although far more demanding.
Brian C –
If it’s not the absolute hardest course you’ve taken, it’ll be one of the hardest courses you’ve taken. The workload is staggering. At an Ivy League University you’ll have an entire semester + winter break to write a compiler. Here you’ll have three weeks. Buckle down & get ready to work hard.
Andrei P –
Great course! Together with part1, it goes through how a computer does what it does, but in a simple way. That is not to say it’s not valuable, it was very cool to see how things work behind the scenes and how they did all that! Best course I’ve done!
Serjey G I –
splendid
Shriharsh M –
What an effort by the teachers! Such complex concepts simplified for a large and varied target audience. I thoroughly enjoyed doing the exercises for this course. I am eager to take up the part 3 whenever it comes out.
Piotr L –
Great, highly recommended.
Chris P –
Excellent, challenging course. Learned way more than I expected!
Graeme G –
This course has been brilliant. I expected to learn a lot, but I got so much more out of this. Its incredible to see such a powerful machine coming out of such a simple design a true mark of elegance.
bao b –
Understand computer is difficult, but this course can help you on this point.
Guillermo S C C –
The best course ever.
Cheng H –
Best ever computer science course I’ve taken. Though it takes me 7 months to complete both parts, it really worth it!
George K O –
passionate professors!
Anran –
A true gem!
mebusy –
I feel that I reviewed more deeply a bunch of courses taught at my university . Thank you.
Benjamin W –
The second part of an extremely rewarding course by instructors who have clearly put a great amount of thought and effort into its design. If you already feel quite comfortable with compilers and operating systems (for instance, you’ve previously implemented your own compiler from scratch), then maybe it suffices only to take the first part of nand2tetris as a course in computer architecture. If not, then I would highly recommend taking the second part in addition to the first as an introduction to these subjects (part 2 should probably not be taken without part 1 since the software hierarchy developed in part 2, particularly the virtual machine, is designed to run on the specialized architecture introduced in part 1). However, note that part 2 is signficantly more work (at least 2 3 times as much) as part 1. Note also that part 2 requires familiarity with a programming language; if you wish to have your assignments graded by the auto grader, then this language should come from the list of supported languages. At the time of this writing (September 2019), the auto grader supports the following languages: C, C++, C#, Elixir, Erlang, Go, Haskell, Java, Lua, Node.js, Perl, PHP, Python 2.7, Python 3, Ruby, Rust, Scala, Swift. One thing to note about this course is that it is not the result of combining ordinary courses on compiler construction and operating systems and many of the standard topics taught in these courses are not touched upon at all. Rather, the nand2tetris philosophy is one of “learn by doing”. This means that, while the lectures do give very clear explanations of what it is you are trying to accomplish, as well as examples of how parts or cases of your problem can be solved, you ultimately have to come up with your own solutions. In the end, your solutions may not be optimal or very elegant, but you will gain a very confident understanding of the details. I believe this makes nand2tetris part 2 an excellent course to take prior to a formal course on compilers or operatings systems.
Arun C –
What a fabulous journey the second part was! It was exhilarating to finish off with the operating system. In many years of professional software development, I did not have as much fun as I had in six weeks in this course. Hats off to both Noam Nisan and Shimon Schoken for having conceived, developed, and presented this course in such a nice manner. I did not receive any feedback for the peer graded assignment, which is sort off sad. While I can guess what might have been the reason for the grade given to me, feedback is very useful; I hope Coursera/the instructors can allow access to feedback in the future. I wish part 2 of the book was also available on the web.
Pavneet S T –
Very difficult and rewarding course
Eugene O –
Thanks for the course! I came from the first part and really glad I took it. Though, OS part is pretty difficult. I was forced to look up some hints on the internet for more implementation details.
Chen A –
After 2 years, i still didnt find something so interesting like this.
Julie L –
Incredible course. Thank you.
Li P –
Course materials and project assignment are well organized, demanding but also motivating. I felt so lucky to have taken both of the courses and really enjoyed them! Thanks!
Liming J –
Excellent course!