CS coursework question

[EvilManagedCare]

Hi, I have a question about a course I have to take for my CS program: Computer Organization and Assembly Language. I would guess most people with CS degrees have had something similar. In a nutshell: The architecture of computer systems and associated software. Topics include digital logic circuits, computer interfacing, interrupt systems, input/output systems, memory systems, assemblers and assembly language programming, and computer networks.

Anyway, my question: a prereq is Discrete Structures (not Data Structures). I know it will vary from course to course, but will I be completely lost if I take this without Discrete Structures? I ask because frequently college courses will have loads of prereqs, but in reality you won't use that knowledge enough to I haven't gotten an answer from the professor. Because of scheduling I am having to consider trying it without Discrete Structures. From those of you who have taken a similar course I was looking for input.

Thanks

 

[esun]

Google says Discrete Structures is just Discrete Math. You will not need it for Computer Organization. The only part that might overlap a bit would be logic, but that's very easy to learn anyway.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Discrete Structures is usually a math course dealing with things sets, relations, recursion, and logic. I don't know how strong you are with things like binary operations, AND, OR, XOR, NAND, etc., which are usually taught in a Discrete Structures (or Discrete Math) course. If you have had some basic circuits or other course work (usually in the electrical or computer engineering college/program) you should be fine. If you don't have a good understanding, then you may very quickly become lost, especially if it is anything like the courses I had. Ours however was 2 terms dealing with underlying computer systems, how they work (everything from interrupts, to timing of data access across different components connected to different system buses, to writing assembly programs). I didn't have a problem at all in the class, but I also changed majors from electrical and computer engineering to computer science, and had a circuits class, as well as a bunch of binary logic classes. To most CS majors, it seems that the Computer Organization/Architecture classes were always the hardest class they had taken at that point (at least at my University). To me and a friend who had changed majors, it was a breeze, but again that was because we had extensive experience in logic design including hands on work from the ECE course work we had to take as freshman (where we did lots of work with LabView and designing our own logic circuits to solve problems).

 

[Kirby]

I took discrete and microcomputers (assembly stuff) at the same time. We covered all the logic stuff in microcomputers and that was about the only thing that tied into the discrete.

 

[degibson]

You'll be fine -- take Discrete [whatever] later.

 

[L337Llama]

You use some logic from discrete in comp org, but the stuff in comp org is easier and quick to pick up. Although comporg as a whole was hard for me for other reasons.

 

[txrandom]

Only thing you really need for the computer class is basic understanding in boolean gates and a very intuitive mind.

 

[tatteredpotato]

The only difficult things in Discrete Math won't be used in a class like that. As long as you understand a few basic laws of boolean algebra you shouldn't have any problems.

 

[hans007]

from what i remember discrete structures is things like sets, and unions. You can probably read a wiki page about that and figure it out . I remember I took that course in summer school when I was in college and it seemed like something you just barely touched on in the programming classes.

 

[EvilManagedCare]

Thanks for the input everyone. Just heard from the professor this morning and was told to go ahead and sign up with or without Discrete Math. I'm very excited about starting the coursework. Now I just have to brush up on the C++.

 

[SJP0tato]

Just to add my (now mostly worthless) $0.02:

Things like this almost always depend on the professor teaching the class. One of my courses went way the heck into the weeds on discrete set theory, and theorem/proofs like you wouldn't believe. Buddy of mine taking the same exact course with a different prof said "Oh yeah we're talking about how Pentium pipelines work, it's very interactive and cool"...

This goes for most all courses, they're as easy/hard, interesting/boring as the professor makes it 98% of the time.

Good luck in your studies!

 

[clamum]

I did not need to use one bit of Discrete Structures/Math in my Computer Organization & Architecture class.