CS 313 Programming Languages Spring 2009

Course Information

Course Homepage:
http://www.middlebury.edu/~schar/courses/cs313-s09

Time and Place:
MWF 10:10-11:00 in MBH 632

Professor:
Daniel Scharstein
633 McCardell Bicentennial Hall
443-2438
schar middlebury.edu

Office Hours:
MWF 1:30-2:30, Tue 11-12,
and by appointment

Text book (required):
Programming Languages: Concepts and Constructs, 2nd ed., Ravi Sethi, Addison Wesley, 1996

Books on reserve in the library:
There are also many other books on various programming languages (Prolog, Scheme, ML, Pascal, ...) available in the library. Most of them can be found in the vicinity of number QA76.73.


Course Description

The goal of this course is to systematically explore concepts and features of programming languages. We will focus on four major programming paradigms: procedural, object-oriented, functional, and logic programming languages. Along the way you will get a taste of several languages, including Pascal, C, Python, Smalltalk, ML, Scheme, Prolog, and perhaps even Postscript. It turns out that all of these are theoretically equivalent in computing power, but in practice each lends itself best to performing certain kinds of tasks. By taking this course, you will expand your practical knowledge of computer science, and also gain new insights into concepts already familiar to you.
Prerequisites: CS 202; knowledge of Java.

Topics

The following is a tentative schedule of topics to be covered in this course. Readings refer to the text by Sethi.

Week     Date     Topic Reading
1 2/9 Intro, History, Grammars Ch 1, 2
2-3 2/16 Procedural programming
Data types, parameter passing,
scope, procedure activation
(C, Pascal, Python) 		Ch 4, 5
4-5 3/2 Object-oriented programming
Class structure, information hiding, inheritance
(Smalltalk, more Python)		 Ch 6, 7
6 3/14 Review, Midterm, Spring break  
7-9 3/30 Functional programming
Recursion vs. iteration, higher order functions,     
lambda expressions, procedure evaluation
(Scheme, ML, more Python) 		Ch 8, 9, 10
10-11 4/20 Logic Programming
Unification, prolog execution model,
rule order and goal order
(Prolog) 		Ch 11
12 5/4 Advanced topics

Assignments, Exams, and Grading

There will be weekly homeworks, consisting of programming assignments and/or written assignments. Usually, homeworks will be handed out on Wednesdays in class, and will be due the following Wednesday in class. Unless otherwise announced, you will have a grace period until 2pm to hand in your work, but I won't be able to answer any questions on the homework during this grace period. Work will not be accepted after the 2pm deadline. However, each student is allotted three 24-hour extensions to use for any homework assignment during the term. If you have not completed an assignment, you should still turn in whatever you have for partial credit. In extenuating circumstances (e.g., sickness, personal crisis, family problems, religious holidays), you may request an additional extension. Such extensions are more likely to be granted if the request is made before the due date.

There will also be several quizzes to test assigned reading and the material covered the previous class, usually one quiz every 1-2 weeks at the beginning of class. The lowest quiz score will be dropped when computing your final grade. Missed quizzes cannot be made up.

Your final grade will be based on homeworks (40%), quizzes (10%), a midterm exam (20%), and a final exam (30%). The midterm exam is scheduled for Wednesday, 3/18, 7:30-9:30pm. The final exam will be self-scheduled. Both exams will be open book, open notes.

Collaboration Policy and Honor Code

The computer science faculty believes that collaboration fosters a healthy and enjoyable educational environment. For this reason, you are encouraged to talk with other students about the course and to form study groups.

Unless otherwise instructed, feel free to discuss problem sets with other students and exchange ideas about how to solve them. However, there is a thin line between collaboration and plagiarizing the work of others. Therefore, it is required that you must compose your own solution to each assignment. In particular, while you may discuss strategies for approaching the programming assignments with your classmates and may receive debugging help from them, you are required to write all of your own code. It is unacceptable (1) to write a program together and turn in two copies of the same program or (2) to copy code written by your classmates. This implies that you should never have in your possession a copy of all or part of another student's homework. It is your own responsibility to protect your work from unauthorized access.

If a programming assignment is designated a group project, then the above rules apply to a group. That is, you are allowed to collaborate on the assignment with your partners, but work with others is restricted as discussed above. All exams, of course, must be entirely your own work and you may not collaborate with anyone.

When working on homework problems, it is perfectly reasonable to consult public literature (books, articles, etc.) for hints, techniques, and even solutions. However, you must reference any sources that contribute to your solution. It is also OK to borrow code from the textbook, from materials discussed in class, and from other sources as long as you give proper credit. Assignments and solutions from previous terms are not considered to be part of the "public" literature, and consulting problem set solutions from previous terms constitutes a violation of the Honor Code.

If you are uncertain how the Honor Code applies to a particular assignment, please ask me. The Department of Computer Science takes the Honor Code seriously. Violations are easy to identify and will be dealt with promptly.