Computer Science 275

Programming Abstractions

Spring 2020

 

 

Me: Bob Geitz, King 125    x-8386

Office Hours: MWF 11-12; Thursdays 1:30-3, or by appointment I am in my office withh the door open most of the day when I am not in class.

 Overview

This is a course on the principles behind programming languages. We will learn the language Scheme and use it to think about the features of programming languages and how they are implemented.

Learning Goals: Here is what you should get out of this course:

• You will become proficient in the language Scheme.
• You will become proficient at thinking recursively.
• You will gain experience with the Functional Programming paradigm, the primary alternative to Object-Oriented Programming.
• You will learn how programming languages are implemented and you will implement one yourself.
• You will learn about the major principles of programmiingi languages. This will help you learn new languages and become more proficient at the ones you know.

Textbook:

The Little Schemer by Friedman and Felleisen (MIT Press, 1996) We will only use this for the first few weeks of the course. After that, everything you are expected to learn will be developed in class. Coming to class would be a good idea.

 

We will also use clickers this semester. You should already have a clicker from CSCI 150, 151, or 241. You should bring it to class every day,

 

You may find these resources from the web helpful:

• https://racket-lang.org/ Racket is the implementation of Scheme we will be using. You can download an interpreter and IDE for it here.
• The Scheme Programming Language by R. Kent Dybvig
• Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs by Harold Abelson and Gerald Sussman

Class Notes:

I will post all of my Powerpoint slides and all of the code we do in class on the class website:
               www.cs.oberlin.edu/~bob/cs275

 

Exams and Grading:

We will have 2 in-class exams during the semester and a comprehensive final exam. Here is how the grades for the course will be composed:

• Labs/Homework 40%
• In-class exams 15% each
• Class Attendance/Participation 5%
• Final exam 25%

Note that the final exam will be Thursday, May 14 at 2pm This time is set by the Registrar and I cannot change it for the class or for individuals. If you have issues with this time you should talk to Bo Arbogast or Donna Russell in the AARC immediately.

Late Labs

The labs in this class are closely tied to the course content. If you fall behind in the labs you won't have a clue of what is going on in the lectures and you won't be able to do the next assignment. Because of this we have a strict late-lab policy. Each assignment will be worth 50 points. We will deduct 10 points for each day your homework is late. After 5 days there is no point in handing an assignment in. If you are sick, tell me in advance. One thing in your favor is that, unlike most of the Java labs, the labs in this class are divided into lots of small programs. You can get most of the credit for an assignment even if you don't have it all working. I strongly suggest that you not put off the homework until the night before it is due.

The Honor Code

The Honor Code has a straightforward application to this class. On all of the exams you are responsible for your own work; you may neither give nor receive any information during the course of the exam. If someone takes an exam at a different time than the rest of the class there may be no communication concerning the exam between that person and anyone else in the class, not even whether the exam was easy or difficult. The atmosphere is much more relaxed for the homework assignments. You may discuss the homework, including details of the programming code, with anyone else in the class, but in the end you must write your own code. Making a copy of someone else's code and handing it in as your own, even if you change the names of the variables in the program, is a violation of the Honor Code. You should be learning to think structurally about code, so talk to anyone about functionality and then write the code yourself.

Course outline

Here is an outline that we might not stick to, but at least it gives you an idea of the course structure:

 

Week	Topic	HW/Labs
Week 1 Feb 4, 6	Your new friends car, cdr and cons Let expressions and lambda expressions	Lab 01: The Basics Due Tuesday, February 11
Week 2 Feb 11, 13	Environments and closures. Set! and variations on Let.	Lab 02: Lists and Recursion Due Tuesday, February 18
Week 3 Feb 18, 20	Structured lists. Higher level functions: Map, Apply and Fold	Lab 03: Structured Lists Due Tuesday, February 25
Week 4 Feb 25, 27	Unrestricted lambda, Map and Apply examples. Fold	Lab 04: Higher Order Functions Due Tuesday, March 3
Week 5 March 3, 5	More on Recursion: The Y-Combinator	Exam 1 (probably Thursday March 5 )
Week 6 March 10, 12	Backtracking.	Lab 05: Backtracking Due Friday, March 19
Week 7 March 17, 19	Datatypes. Overview of the interpreter.	Lab 06: Interpreters 1: Creating an Environment Due Wedmesday, April 1
SPRING  BREAK!!!
Week 8 March 31, Apr 2	Interpreters	Lab 07: Interpreters II Interpreting Basic Expressions Due Thursday, April 9
Week 9 April 7-9	Interpreters
Week 10 April 14-16	Define-syntax	Lab 08: Interpreters III: Lambdas, Set! and Letrec Due Friday, April 17
Week 11 April 21-23	Streams	Lab 9: Streams Due Thursday, April 30 Exam 2 (possibly Tuesday, April 21)
Week 12 April 28-30	Continuations	Lab 10: Continuations Due Friday, May 8
Week 13 May 5,7	Continuation-passing Style, call/cc
Final Exam: Thursday, May 14, 2pm