Course Syllabus

This is a highly approximate syllabus. Expect topics, assignments, ordering, and almost everything else to change.

Week One: Language Design

Class 01 (Monday, January 25) Introduction

• Background
• Models
• Administrative Details
• Reading: Louden, Chapter 1
• Assignment: Introductory survey. Due before class on Wednesday!

Class 02 (Wednesday, January 27) A Brief History of Programming Languages

• The role of history in computer science
• Practice: dating ideas and issues
• A biased, partial, and partially-correct history of programming languages
• Reading: Louden, Chapter 2

Class 03 (Friday, January 29) Design Issues

• Basic criteria for evaluating languages
• Some additional criteria
• Reading: Louden, Chapter 3
• Reading: C.A.R. Hoare: ``Hints on Programming Language Design''
• Assignment one (language design issues) distributed. Due Friday, February 5, 1999.

Week Two: Functional Programming

Class 04 (Monday, February 1) Introduction to Functional Programming

• The functional model
• Variations on functional programming
• History of functional programming, revisited
• Reading: Louden, Chapter 10

Class 05 (Wednesday, February 3) Untyped Functional Programming in Scheme

• Key aspects of functional programming in scheme
  • Lists and atoms as built-in data types
  • Higher-order functions
  • ``Untyped'' programming
• Reading: The Revised(5) Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme

Class 06 (Friday, February 5) Laboratory Session: Scheme

• Higher-order functions
• Anonymous functions
• Lab: Scheme
• Assignment 1 (design) due.
• Assignment 2 (design) distributed. Due Friday, February 12, 1999.

Week Three: Continuations

Class 07 (Monday, February 8) Continuations

• Getting the context of a function call from within the function
• Using continuations
• Tail recursion

Class 08 (Wednesday, February 10) Continuations, Continued

• Tail recursion
• Writing permute recursively

Class 09 (Friday, February 12) Continuations, Continued

• Continuations and tail recursion
• Applications of continuations
• Assignment 2 due.
• Exam 1 distributed. Due Friday, February 19.

Week Four: Semantics

Class 10 (Monday, February 15) Continuations, Nearly Concluded

• Reading: Louden, Chapter 12

Class 11 (Wednesday, February 17) Introduction to Formal Semantics

• Reading: Louden, Chapter 12

Class 12 (Friday, February 19) Introduction to Denotational Semantics

• Exam 1 due.

Week Five: Semantics, Continued

Class 13 (Monday, February 22) Denotational Semantics, Continued

• A small introduction to reading the Scheme semantics.
• Reading: the Scheme report

Class 14 (Wednesday, February 24) The Semantics of SIMPLE

• Reading: The Scheme Report: Formal Syntax and Semantics

Class 15 (Friday, February 26) Scheme Semantics (1)

• Assignment 3 distributed.

Week Six: Miscellaneous

Class 16 (Monday, March 1) Scheme Semantics (2)

Class 17 (Wednesday, March 3) Program Verification

Class 18 (Friday, March 5) Scheme Semantics (3)

• Assignment 3 due.

Week Seven: Functional Programming, Concluded

Class 19 (Monday, March 8) Another Perspective: FP

Class 20 (Wednesday, March 10) FP, Continued

Class 21 (Friday, March 12) Functional Programming, Concluded

• Exam 2 distributed. Due Friday, March 19.

Week Eight: Logic Programming

Class 22 (Monday, March 15) Introduction to Logic Programming

Class 23 (Wednesday, March 17) Logic Programming, Continued

Class 24 (Friday, March 19) Prolog

Break

Break runs from 5:00 p.m. on Friday, March 19, 1998 to 8:00 a.m. on Monday, April 5.

Week Nine: Syntax

Class 25 (Monday, April 5) Prolog, Concluded

• Reading: Louden, Chapter 4.

Class 26 (Wednesday, April 7) Languages and Grammars

Class 27 (Friday, April 9) An Expression Grammar

• Exam 2 due.

Week Ten: Types

Class 28 (Monday, April 12) Discussion of Exam 2

• Exam 2 returned.
• Assignment 5 (Prolog) distributed.

Class 29 (Wednesday, April 14) Ambiguous Grammars, Concluded

• Reading: Louden, chapter 6

Class 30 (Friday, April 16) Data Types (I)

Week Eleven: More Types

Class 31 (Monday, April 19) Data Types (II)

• Assignment 5 (Prolog) due.

Class 32 (Wednesday, April 21) Type Checking

Class 33 (Friday, April 23) Object-Oriented Programming

• Exam 3 distributed. Due Friday, April 30.

Week Twelve: Control

Class 34 (Monday, April 26) Control

• Topics for and outlines of presentations due.

Class 35 (Wednesday, April 28) Conditionals and Loops

Class 36 (Friday, April 30) Procedures and Parameter Passing

• Exam 3 due.

Week Thirteen: Student Presentations

Class 37 (Monday, May 3) Discussion of Exam 3

Class 38 (Wednesday, May 5) Student Presentation: Smalltalk

Class 39 (Friday, May 7) Student Presentation: Exceptions

Week Fourteen: Wrapup

Class 40 (Monday, May 10) Student Presentation: Garbage Collection

Class 41 (Wednesday, May 12) Student Presentation: Perl

Class 42 (Friday, May 14) Wrapup

• End-of-course evaluations
• What we didn't study

Final

The final examination for this course is optional. It can be used as a makeup for one examination. Like the other examinations, it will be a take-home examination.