CSCI.4430/6969 Programming Languages-- Spring 2013

Instructor:  Carlos Varela
Office:  Lally 308 (x 6912)
Office Hours:  Mondays and Thursdays, 3-3:50pm; or by appointment
Meeting Place:  Darrin 324
Meeting Hours:  Mondays and Thursdays 4:00-5:50pm
TAs: Wenli Li, Eric Freese (50%)
TAs' Office: Amos Eaton 217
TAs' Office Hours: Eric Freese: Tuesday 2:00-3:30pm, Wenli Li: Wednesday 2:00-3:30pm and Friday 4:00-5:30pm
Home pagehttp://www.cs.rpi.edu/academics/courses/spring13/proglang/
For questions about the course, please email:  proglang AT cs DOT rpi DOT edu.

News

Programming Assignment 3 is available (April 11, 2013)
Programming Assignment 2 is available (February 17, 2013)
Please note, there have been changes to both TAs' office hours!
Site LMS is up! (January 29, 2013)
Programming Assignment 1 is available (January 29, 2013)


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 object-oriented 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:


Course Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Logic Programming
  3. Functional and Imperative Programming
  4. Concurrent and Distributed Object-Oriented Programming


Tentative Course Syllabus

Date Topic Handouts Grade
01/24 Introduction to programming languages:  history, syntax, semantics, essentials, paradigms.
Logic programming: introduction, Horn clauses
Intro,PLP11A.pdf
rainy.pl

01/28
Logic programming:  predicate calculus--Programming Assignment 1 Due 02/12 PLP11B.pdf
family.pl
20%
01/31
Prolog: resolution, unification, search, backtracking, cut, lists PLP11C.pdf, append.pl, crossword.pl, cut.pl, cut2.pl, cut3.pl, cut4.pl, cut5.pl, family2.pl, loop.pl, not2.pl
02/04
Prolog: arithmetic, equalities, I/O, meta-interpreters, natural language parsing PLP11D.pdf, browse.pl, nestedloop.pl, sentences.pl, sentences2.pl
02/07
Logic programming: accumulators PLP11E,Sections3.4.3-3.4.4.pdf appenddl.pl dlists.oz accumulators.oz
02/11 Logic programming: difference lists
flatten.pl sentences3.pl
02/14 Lambda calculus:  alpha-renaming, beta conversion, applicative and normal evaluation orders, Church-Rosser theorem, combinators LambdaCalculus.pdf
02/19 Higher order programming, Oz -- Programming Assignment 2 Due 03/01
LambdaCalculus2.pdf combinators.oz eta.oz hop.oz lambda-booleans.oz lambda-numbers.oz rec.oz seq.oz 20%
02/21 Introduction to programming concepts: lists, pattern matching, correctness, complexity
Chapter1.pdf comb.oz concepts.oz lists.oz pascal.oz scope.oz store.oz
02/25 Declarative programming, grammars, syntax and semantics. Section2.1.pdf rainy.oz recursion.oz
02/28 Single-assignment store, kernel language syntax Sections2.2-2.3.pdf single-assignment.oz
03/04 Kernel language semantics: concepts, abstract machine Sections2.4.1-2.4.2.pdf kernel.oz scope2.oz
03/07 Kernel language semantics: non-suspendable, suspendable statements, closures Sections2.4.3-2.4.4.pdf dataflow.oz
03/18 From kernel to practical language, exceptions Sections2.4.5,2.6,2.7.pdf case-semantics.oz semantics.oz
03/21
Review for Exam I

03/25
Exam I 20%
03/28 Memory management, tail-form optimization, garbage collection Section2.5.pdf memleak.oz
04/01 Exam I analysis


04/04 Iterative computation, higher order programming, abstract data types
Sections3.1-3.2,3.6-3.7.pdf fold.oz sqrt.oz stackADT.oz
04/08 State, object-oriented programming, inheritance, polymorphism
Sections6.1-6.4,7.1-7.2.pdf oop.oz c.java c1.java c2.java c3.java
04/11
Actors:  a model of concurrent computation -- Programming Assignment 3 Due 04/26
actors.pdf 20%
04/15
SALSA concurrency:  actor creation, asynchronous message passing, state encapsulation, token-passing continuations, named tokens, join blocks, first-class continuations SALSA-Concurrency.pdf HelloWorld.salsa Cell.salsa CellTester.salsa NDCellTester.salsa DCellTester.salsa Fibonacci.salsa Calculator.salsa
04/18
SALSA distribution and mobility:  universal naming, location-transparent communication, actor migration
SALSA-Distributed.pdf AddressBook.salsa AddUser.salsa Cell.salsa GetCellValue.salsa GetEmail.salsa Migrate.salsa MigrateBook.salsa MigrateCell.salsa MovingCellTester.salsa TokenCellTester.salsa
04/22
Concurrent and distributed programming patterns
SALSA-Patterns.pdf
04/25
Declarative concurrency
Chapter4.pdf dconcurrency.oz
04/29
Dynamic and static typing, parameter passing mechanisms, lazy evaluation Sections2.8.3,4.5,6.1-6.4.pdf callbyneed.oz lazy-eval.oz
05/02
Review for Exam II

05/06
Exam II 20%
Class Participation Extra-Credit 10%


Reading Material


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 will receive a failing grade for this course.

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


Last Updated -- April 29th, 2013.