CSCI.4430/6969 Programming Languages-- Spring 2010

Instructor: Carlos Varela
Office: Lally 308 (x 6912)
Office Hours: Mondays and Thursdays, 12-1pm; or by appointment
Meeting Place: Low 4050
Meeting Hours: Mondays and Thursdays 10:00-11:50am
TAs: Wei Huang and Yousaf Shah
TAs Office: Amos Eaton 217
TAs Office Hours: Wei Huang: Thursday 2:00-3:30pm, Friday 10:00-11:30am; Yousaf Shah: Tuesday 09:30-11:00am and Wednesday 9:00-10:30am; or by appointment.
Home page: http://www.cs.rpi.edu/academics/courses/spring10/proglang/
For questions about the course, please email: proglang AT cs DOT rpi DOT edu.

News

Programming Assignment 3 is available (April 15th, 2010)
PA2 Grade released. Some test cases can be found here (Any request to re-evaluate a grade must be made within two weeks, that is, before April 7th) (March 23rd, 2010)
Programming Assignment 2 is available (February 18th, 2010)
Programming Assignment 1 is available (January 28th, 2010)

Course Description

This course will enable students to understand 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. Students will also be exposed to different programming paradigms (computation models) including logic programming, functional programming, and concurrent and distributed programming. Students will write programming assignments in Prolog, Oz, and SALSA.

Pre-requisites

CSCI.2400 Models of Computation.

Course Themes

Programming Language Essentials. Logic, Functional, Concurrent Object-Oriented Programming Paradigms.

Learning Outcomes

When the students have successfully completed this course, they will be able to:

understand the essential aspects of programming languages, including theoretical foundations such as the lambda calculus, predicate calculus and the actor model,
compare and apply multiple programming paradigms,
design and develop logic, functional, and concurrent programs.

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)

Tentative Course Syllabus

Date	Topic	Handouts	Grade
01/25	Introduction to programming languages: history, syntax, semantics, essentials, paradigms. Logic programming: introduction, Horn clauses	Intro,PLP11A.pdf rainy.pl crossword.pl
01/28	Logic programming: predicate calculus--Programming Assignment 1 Due 02/12	PLP11B.pdf	20%
02/01	Prolog: resolution, unification, search, backtracking, cut, lists	PLP11C.pdf loop.pl not2.pl append.pl cut.pl cut2.pl cut3.pl cut4.pl cut5.pl
02/04	Prolog: arithmetic, equalities, I/O, meta-interpreters, natural language parsing	PLP11D.pdf browse.pl sentences.pl sentences2.pl clause.pl
02/08	Logic programming: accumulators, difference lists	PLP11E,Sections3.4.3-3.4.4.pdf accumulators.pl accumulators.oz dlists.oz
02/11	Lambda calculus: alpha-renaming, beta conversion, applicative and normal evaluation orders, Church-Rosser theorem, combinators	LambdaCalculus.pdf combinators.oz
02/18	Higher order programming, Oz -- Programming Assignment 2 Due 03/05	lec_021810.pdf eta.oz hop.oz lambda-booleans.oz lambda-numbers.oz rec.oz seq.oz	20%
02/22	Introduction to programming concepts: lists, pattern matching	Sections1.1-1.8.pdf scope.oz comb.oz lists.oz pascal.oz rainy.oz
02/25	Introduction to programming concepts: correctness, complexity	Sections1.9-1.17.pdf concepts.oz store.oz
03/01	Declarative programming, grammars, syntax and semantics.	Section2.1.pdf recursion.oz
03/04	Single-assignment store, kernel language syntax	Sections2.2-2.3.pdf scope2.oz single-assignment.oz
03/15	Kernel language semantics: concepts, abstract machine	kernel.oz Sections2.4.1-2.4.2.pdf
03/18	Kernel language semantics: non-suspendable, suspendable statements, closures	Sections2.4.3-2.4.4.pdf dataflow.oz
03/22	From kernel to practical language, exceptions	Sections2.4.5,2.6,2.7.pdf semantics.oz
03/25	Exam I review
03/29	Exam I		20%
04/01	Memory management, tail-form optimization, garbage collection	Section2.5.pdf memleak.oz
04/05	Exam I Analysis
04/08	Iterative computation, higher order programming, abstract data types	Sections3.1-3.2,3.6-3.7.pdf sqrt.oz fold.oz stackADT.oz
04/12	Dynamic and static typing, parameter passing mechanisms, State	Sections2.8.3,6.1-6.4.4.pdf types.oz parameterpassing.oz
04/15	Actors: A Model of Concurrent Computation -- Programming Assignment 3 Due 04/30	actors1.pdf actors2.pdf	20%
04/19	SALSA Concurrency: actor creation, asynchronous message passing, state encapsulation, token-passing continuations, join blocks, first-class continuations, named tokens	SALSA-Concurrency.pdf thread_problem.pdf salsa_examples.zip
04/22	SALSA Distribution and Mobility: universal naming, location-transparent communication, actor migration	SALSA-Distributed.pdf dist_examples.zip
04/26	Concurrent and Distributed Programming Patterns	SALSA-Patterns.pdf SALSA-Patterns.pps
04/29	Declarative concurrency	Chapter4.pdf dconcurrency.oz
05/03	Lazy evaluation	Section4.5.pdf lazy-eval.oz
05/06	Exam II review	callbyneed.oz
05/10	Exam II		20%
	Class Participation Extra-Credit		5%

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

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 -- Feb 18th, 2010.