CS 365 Programming Languages and Systems
Spring 2002

Contact Information

Description

"Language paradigms (procedural, functional, object-oriented, logic), language design and implementation issues and language issues related to parallelism."

• become familiar with the major structures found in programming languages,
• be able to evaluate programming languages for their quality and applicability to particular problems,
• and, especially, be able to design well-engineered languages.

As a side-effect of attaining these goals, you will have little trouble learning new languages when you need to do so.

Prerequisites

In addition, it will be expected that you have done enough programming to have some appreciation of the problems involved in designing and implementing large software projects. Further, you will be expected to be familiar with basic data structures such as linked lists and stacks.

Text

You will be expected to keep up with the reading according to the schedule (approximately one chapter per week). By reading the material beforehand, we will be able to devote class time to summarization, questions, expansion and discussion.

Although I wrote the book that has been chosen for this course, I have not been involved in this area for nearly fifteen years, so the course will be conducted as a collaborative inquiry, through which we will all learn. In other words, you will be expected to take an active role in the class, and will be graded accordingly.

Topics

1. Goals; Pseudo-code Interpreters
2. First Generation (FORTRAN)
3. Second Generation (Algol-60)
4. Second Generation: Syntactic Issues (Algol-60)
5. Third Generation (Pascal)
6. Runtime Implementation of Modern Languages
7. Fourth Generation (Ada)
8. Fourth Generation: Concurrency (Ada)
9. Fifth Generation: Function-oriented Programming (LISP)
10. Fifth Generation: Functional Programming (LISP)
11. Fifth Generation: Recursive Interpreters (LISP)
12. Fifth Generation: Object-oriented Programming (SmallTalk)
13. Fifth Generation: Logic-oriented Programming (Prolog)

Grading

The Office of Disability Services and the Campus Disability Monitors have asked us to include this statement in our syllabi:

Students who have a disability that require accommodation(s) should make an appointment with the Office of Disability Services (974-6087) to discuss their specific needs as well as schedule an appointment with me during my office hours.

Homework

There will be approximately six projects/homework assignments. There will be no programming projects, except perhaps one small program in the language of your choice.

Since language design and evaluation is of little value unless the results can be communicated clearly, assignments will generally take the form of well-written essays or oral presentations, which will be graded for grammar and style as well as content. (Non-native English speakers will be graded for content and organization, but not for English grammar or style.)

Exams

The final exam will be approximately one-half on the materials covered since the midterm and one-half cumulative.

The Final Exam will be 10:15-12:15, Tuesday May 7, 2002

See Final Exam Information (forthcoming)

Class Handouts