Software Performance Engineering

Term: Spring 2025
Instructor: Xuhao Chen
Lecture: 12:40-2:00 MW in Comm Arts, room 151
Office Hours: Tuesday 5pm
TAs: Raaghav Ravishankar

Welcome!

This course provides a hands-on, project-based introduction to building scalable and high-performance software systems. We aim to convey both:

1. First-principles understanding:
   Why do modern computer architectures look the way they do?

2. Hands-on experience:
   How do we write fast code for these platforms in practice?

Why should I learn Software Performance Engineering (SPE)?

Announcements

• Project 2 has been released! (Instructions)

• Homework 5 has been released! (Instructions)

• Project 2 Beta submission due Friday, April 4. (Gradescope)

• Homework 5 due 10pm Thursday, Apil 7. (Gradescope)

Site Map

• Calendar – Lecture, lab, and office hour schedule; assignment due dates.

• Labs – Descriptions and instructions for all lab assignments.

• Syllabus – Course policies, topics covered, general course information.

• Resources – Links to notes and external materials relevant to the course.

• Contact – How to get in touch with course staff.

• Piazza – Main hub for student discussion and staff communication.

Acknowledgements

This course was originally designed and developed by Prof. Charles E. Leiserson and the 6.106/6.172 course staff at MIT. We extend our gratitude to the MIT course staff for generously sharing the course materials and for their invaluable support.

Thanks to CS6120 at Cornell for providing the base CSS stylesheet on which this website is built.