CSCI.4430/6969 Programming Languages-- Fall 2007

Instructor: Carlos Varela
Office: Lally 308 (x 6912)
Office Hours: Mo, Th, 3-4pm; or by appointment
Meeting Place: Amos Eaton, Room 214
Meeting Hours: Mo, Th, 12:00-1:50pm
TA: Brian Boodman
TA Office: Amos Eaton, 217
TA Office Hours: Tu 5:00-6:30pm and We 1-2pm

For questions about the course, please email: proglang AT cs DOT rpi DOT edu.

WebCT

News

No office hours on Tuesday.
Programming Assignment 3 due date has been changed from November 20th to November 27th.
Programming Assignment 3
Office hours on 10-16 are cancelled.
Tuesday office hours are now at 5pm
Programming Assignment 3 due date has been changed from November 30th to November 20th.
Programming Assignment 2
Exam I date has been changed from October 22nd to October 25th.
Programming Assignment 1

Course Objectives

This course will study essential aspects of programming languages --e.g., theoretical foundations, syntax, semantics, types, scope of variables, data abstraction, control abstraction, parameter passing and expression evaluation mechanisms. We will also introduce different programming paradigms (computation models) including logic programming, functional programming, imperative programming, and concurrent and distributed programming. Students will write programming assignments in Prolog, Oz, and SALSA.

Pre-requisites

CSCI.2400 Models of Computation.

Course Contents

Introduction

Brief history of programming languages
Syntax
Semantics
Essentials
Paradigms

Logic Programming

Horn clauses
Resolution and unification
Search and backtracking

Functional and Imperative Programming

Lambda calculus
Scope of variables
Data abstraction/control abstraction
Static/dynamic scoping
Parameter passing mechanisms
Expression evaluation orders
Types
Recursion
Higher-order programming
Lazy evaluation
State (Imperative programming)

Concurrent and Distributed Object-Oriented Programming

Actors
Synchronous vs asynchronous communication, message passing
Token-passing continuations, join blocks, first-class continuations
Universal naming, remote message passing, migration (Distributed programming)

Reading Material

Concepts, Techniques, and Models of Computer Programming by Van Roy, and Haridi. 1st Edition. MIT Press 2004. (Required Textbook)

URL: http://www.info.ucl.ac.be/people/PVR/book.html

Programming Language Pragmatics by Scott. 2nd Edition. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers. (Recommended Textbook)

URL: http://www.cs.rochester.edu/u/scott/pragmatics/

Essentials of Programming Languages by Friedman, Wand, and Haynes. 2nd Edition. MIT Press. (Recommended Textbook)

URL: http://www.cs.indiana.edu/eopl/

A Foundation for Actor Computation by Agha, Mason, Smith, Talcott. pp. 1-27.

In Journal of Functional Programming, 1996.
URL: http://osl.cs.uiuc.edu/Papers/actor-semantics.ps

Programming Dynamically Reconfigurable Open Systems with SALSA by Varela and Agha.

In ACM SigPlan Notices 36(12):20-34, OOPSLA 2001 Intriguing Technology Track, December 2001.
URL: http://www.cs.rpi.edu/~cvarela/oopsla2001.pdf

Tentative Course Syllabus

Date	Topic	Handouts	Grade
08/27	Introduction to programming languages: history, syntax, semantics, essentials, paradigms. Logic programming: introduction, Horn clauses	Intro,PLP11.3A.pdf rainy.pl
08/30	Logic programming: predicate calculus--Programming Assignment 1 Due 09/21	PLP11.3B.pdf	20%
09/06	Prolog: resolution, unification, search, backtracking, cut, lists	PLP11.3C.pdf append.pl, cut.pl, cut2.pl, cut3.pl, cut4.pl, cut5.pl, loop.pl, not2.pl
09/10	Prolog: arithmetic, equalities, I/O, meta-interpreters, natural language parsing	PLP11.3D.pdf browse.pl, sentences.pl, sentences2.pl
09/13	Logic programming: accumulators, difference lists	PLP11.3E,Sections3.4.3-3.4.4.pdf accumulators.pl, accumulators.oz, dlists.oz
09/17	Lambda calculus: alpha-renaming, beta conversion, applicative and normal evaluation orders, Church-Rosser theorem, combinators	lambda1.pdf combinators.oz
09/20	Higher order programming, Oz -- Programming Assignment 2 Due 10/12	lambda2.pdf eta.oz, seq.oz, rec.oz, hop.oz, lambda-numbers.oz, lambda-booleans.oz	20%
09/24	Introduction to programming concepts: lists, pattern matching, correctness, complexity, lazy functions	Sections1.1-1.8.pdf scope.oz, comb.oz, lists.oz, pascal.oz, rainy.oz
09/27	Introduction to programming concepts: concurrency, dataflow, state, objects, classes, nondeterminism, atomicity	Sections1.9-1.17.pdf concepts.oz, store.oz
10/01	Declarative programming, grammars, syntax and semantics.	Section2.1.pdf scope2.oz
10/04	Single-assignment store, kernel language syntax	Sections2.2-2.3.pdf single-assignment.oz
10/09	Kernel language semantics: concepts, abstract machine	Sections2.4.1-2.4.2.pdf kernel.oz
10/11	Kernel language semantics: non-suspendable, suspendable statements, closures	Sections2.4.3-2.4.4.pdf dataflow.oz, recursion.oz
10/15	From kernel to practical language, exceptions	Sections2.4.5-2.7.pdf semantics.oz
10/18	Memory management, tail-form optimization, garbage collection.	Section2.5.pdf memleak.oz
10/22	Exam I review
10/25	Exam I		20%
10/29	Concurrent object-oriented programming: Java -- Programming Assignment 3 Due 11/20	Java,Sections7.7,8.6.pdf mm/c.java, mm/c1.java, mm/c2.java	20%
11/01	Concurrent OO programming in SALSA: actor creation, message passing, internal state, token-passing continuations, join blocks, first-class continuations	SALSA-Concurrency.pdf examples/helloworld/HelloWorld.salsa examples/cell/Cell.salsa, CellTester.salsa examples/fibonacci/Fibonacci.salsa, Calculator.salsa examples/fibonacci2/Fibonacci.salsa
11/05	No Lecture
11/08	Distributed programming in SALSA: universal naming, remote communication, actor migration	SALSA-Distributed.pdf dist/examples/migrate/Migrate.salsa dist/examples/cell/Cell.salsa, MovingCellTester.salsa, MigrateCell.salsa, GetCellValue.salsa
11/12	Concurrent and Distributed Programming Patterns in SALSA	SALSA-Patterns.pdf dist/examples/addressbook/AddressBook.salsa, AddUser.salsa, MigrateBook.salsa, GetEmail.salsa dist/examples/lock/File.salsa,WriteLine.salsa
11/15	Iterative computation, higher order programming, abstract data types, state	Sections3.1-3.2,3.6-3.7.pdf sqrt.oz, fold.oz, stackADT.oz
11/19	Dynamic and static typing, parameter passing mechanisms	Sections2.8.3,6.1-6.4.4.pdf types.oz, parameterpassing.oz
11/26	Declarative concurrency	Chapter4.pdf dconcurrency.oz
11/29	Lazy evaluation	Section4.5.pdf lazy-eval.oz
12/03	Exam II review
12/06	Exam II		20%
	Class Participation Extra Credit		5%

Software

Academic Integrity

The Rensselaer Handbook of Student Rights and Responsibilities defines several types of academic dishonesty, all of which are applicable to this class. Students found in violation of academic dishonesty policies may receive a failing grade for this course.

Please contact the instructor if there is any question about academic (dis)honesty.

Last Updated -- November, 2007.