Priority scheduling in Operating Systems - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Priority Scheduling

📖 Scenario: You are learning how an operating system decides which program to run first when multiple programs are waiting. This is called priority scheduling. Each program has a priority number. The OS runs the program with the highest priority first.

🎯 Goal: Build a simple priority scheduling example by creating a list of programs with their priorities, then selecting the program with the highest priority to run first.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a list of programs with their priority numbers

Add a variable to hold the highest priority found

Use a loop to find the program with the highest priority

Select and show the program that should run first based on priority

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Operating systems use priority scheduling to decide which program or task to run first, improving performance and user experience.

💼 Career

Understanding priority scheduling is important for roles in system administration, software development, and IT support where managing system resources efficiently is key.

1

Create the list of programs with priorities

Create a list called programs with these exact entries: {'name': 'Email', 'priority': 2}, {'name': 'Browser', 'priority': 3}, {'name': 'Music Player', 'priority': 1}.

Operating Systems

# Create the list of programs with their priorities
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use a list of dictionaries. Each dictionary has keys 'name' and 'priority'.

2

Add a variable to hold the highest priority

Create a variable called highest_priority and set it to 0 to start tracking the highest priority found.

Operating Systems

programs = [
    {'name': 'Email', 'priority': 2},
    {'name': 'Browser', 'priority': 3},
    {'name': 'Music Player', 'priority': 1}
]
# Create a variable to hold the highest priority
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Start with zero because priorities are positive numbers. This variable will store the highest priority found so far.

3

Find the program with the highest priority

Use a for loop with variable program to go through programs. Inside the loop, if program['priority'] is greater than highest_priority, update highest_priority to program['priority'].

Operating Systems

programs = [
    {'name': 'Email', 'priority': 2},
    {'name': 'Browser', 'priority': 3},
    {'name': 'Music Player', 'priority': 1}
]
highest_priority = 0
# Loop through programs to find the highest priority
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Compare each program's priority to the current highest. Update if you find a bigger number.

4

Select the program to run first

Create a variable called selected_program and set it to the first program in programs whose 'priority' equals highest_priority using a for loop with variable program.

Operating Systems

programs = [
    {'name': 'Email', 'priority': 2},
    {'name': 'Browser', 'priority': 3},
    {'name': 'Music Player', 'priority': 1}
]
highest_priority = 0
for program in programs:
    if program['priority'] > highest_priority:
        highest_priority = program['priority']
# Find and set the selected_program with highest priority
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Stop the loop when you find the first program with the highest priority.