[Announcements] [Textbook] [Grading] [Schedule] [Resources]

Lab Assignments

• Lab assignments should be submitted on Moodle http://moodle.lafayette.edu
• Lab website: http://www.cs.lafayette.edu/~gexia/cs301/labs
  
  

Announcements

• For most exercises and assignments you'll need to run the interpreters for R&K's micro-languages. The interpreters can be found in ~gexia/public/CS301/software/bin/. They should run on either our 64-bit Linux servers or on most recent 32-bit Linux workstations. To run an interpreter, for example an interpreter of impcore, you can put the directory ~gexia/public/CS301/software/bin/ in your PATH and then simply enter impcore, or enter the full path name explicitly, like this:

  ~gexia/public/CS301/software/bin/impcore          

  Unless otherwise directed, you should keep all the programs for each assignment in one directory. To hand in your assignments, create a tar file and email it to me. Be careful when creating the tar file, because erroronous tar command may erase your files.

• Course website: http://www.cs.lafayette.edu/~gexia/cs301/
  
  

Course Description

This course is an introduction to the theory of the design and implementation of contemporary programming languages. Topics include the study of programming language syntax and semantics, translators, and imperative, functional, logic and object-oriented language paradigms.

Learning outcomes:

After completing the course, the student should be able to

• understand and use the fundamental principles and paradigms of modern programming languages, and
• understand and use the different styles of programming languages.

Textbook

• A preprint of Ramsey and Kamin, Programming Languages: an Interpreter-Based Approach. The text is available to the students in the College Bookstore.

Supplemental Readings

• Introduction to Standard ML and Programming in Standard ML, both by R. W. Harper.
• Jeff Ullman, Elements of ML Programming, 2nd Edition (ML97)

Grading Policy

The grades will be based on a combination of assignments and exams. The distribution of the course grade is shown below:

• Assignments -- 10%
• Midterm Exam 1 -- 30%
• Midterm Exam 2 -- 30%
• Final Exam -- 30%

The final letter grades will be assigned based on criteria specified in the Student Handbook.

All assignments are to be submitted on Moodle at 11:55pm on the due date. Each student is allowed a one-time lateness of up to 48 hours. Beyond this, no exceptions will be made on late or missing assignments unless the student has an allowed excuse. An allowed excuse is an approved Dean's excuse or the instructor's permission. The final letter grades will be assigned based on criteria specified in the Student Handbook.

Academic Honesty

The Student Handbook of Lafayette College has a section on Principles of Intellectual Honesty that defines academic dishonesty to include:

• Use of other persons' writings without proper acknowledgment,
• Use of reference material without properly crediting sources used,
• Use of other students' work, with or without revision,
• Collaboration beyond the limits established by the instructor,
• Submission of the same work in more than one course

A student who commits academic dishonesty is subject to Disciplinary actions including suspension or expulsion.

Attendance

Students are expected to attend classes unless there is a reasonable excuse. A reasonable excuse is a previously approved Dean's excuse or the instructor's prior permission.

Tentative Schedule

The lecture notes will be posted below. They are adapted from lecture notes by Penny Anderson.

Changes will be made according to the progress of the course.

Web Resources

• Norman Ramsey's home page
• Robert Harper's home page
• Moscow ML documentation
• An ML tutorial by Andrew Cumming
• The Wikipedia entry on functional programming
• A Haskell tutorial
• Some real-world applications of functional programming
• Parnas's classic paper on modularity