CSI 4125

CSI 4125 Theory of Programming Languages
Winter 2008

Professor
Required Textbook and Class Notes
- Essentials of Programming Languages, Daniel P. Friedman, Mitchell Wand, and Christopher T. Haynes, MIT Press, 2nd edition, 2001.
  - Textbook web page http://www.cs.indiana.edu/eopl/
- Photocopies of supplementary class notes will be available.
Goals
- "This book brings you face-to-face with the most fundamental idea in computer programming:
  The interpreter for a computer language is just another program.
  It sounds obvious, doesn't it? But the implications are profound. [...] If you are a programmer, mastering the idea of an interpreter is a source of great power. It provokes a real shift in mindset, a basic change in the way you think about programming."
- "The goal of this book is an analytic study of programming languages. Our goal is to provide a deep, working understanding of the essential concepts of programming languages."
- Most of these essentials relate to the semantics, or meaning, of program elements. Such meanings reflect how program elements are interpreted as the program executes. Programs called interpreters provide the most direct, executable expression of program semantics. [...] We therefore choose interpreters as our primary vehicle for expressing the semantics of programming language elements."
Evaluation
- Assignments, 30%
- Midterm Exam, 20%
- Final Exam, 50%
- There will be approximately 5 assignments.
- The midterm exam will take place during class time.
- To pass the course, you must obtain at least 50% on the final.
Programming
- The language of implementation for the course will be Scheme.
- It is highly recommended that you use DrScheme. You may either download it, or use the version that is available under Microsoft Windows in the SITE lab. To run the book's code you need to set the language to "Essentials of Programming Languages (2nd ed.)".
- If you want to use another Scheme, you will need the appropriate Scheme language extensions to run the book's code. See the textbook web site for information.
- The DrScheme web site has a useful Scheme tutorial.
- There is also a freely available online textbook.
Approximate Course Outline (with readings from textbook and class notes)
- Review of Grammars, Recursive Programs, and Scheme, Textbook Sections 1.1, 1.2
- Scoping and Binding of Variables, Textbook Section 1.3
- Data Abstraction, Textbook Sections 2.1, 2.2
- Data Type Representation, Textbook Section 2.3
- Data Type Example: Data Queues, Textbook Section 2.4
- A Simple Interpreter, Textbook Section 3.1
- The Front End, Textbook Section 3.2
- Conditional Evaluation, Textbook Section 3.3
- Local Binding, Textbook Section 3.4
- Procedures, Textbook Section 3.5
- Recursion, Textbook Section 3.6
- Variable Assignment, Textbook Section 3.7
- Statements, Textbook Section 3.9
- Parameter-Passing Variations, Textbook Section 3.8
- Operational and Denotational Semantics, Class Notes Chapters 2 and 5
- Object-Oriented Programming: Classes and Inheritance, Textbook Sections 5.1, 5.2
- Object-Oriented Programming: Implementation, Textbook Sections 5.3, 5.4
- Continuation-Passing Interpreters, Textbook Sections 7.1-7.2
- Exceptions and Control Flow, Textbook Section 7.4
- A Continuation-Passing Interpreter for Logic Programming, Textbook Section 7.6
- Nondeterminism and Parallelism, Class Notes Chapter 14
- Axiomatic Semantics, Class Notes Sections 13.4-13.5