ICS 313 -- Programming Language Theory

Homepage/Syllabus -- Spring 2013

Quick Links: Messages , Weekly Schedule (pdf) Lecture Notes & Links, Assignments, Exams and Grading, Emacs and Unix, Lisp, Prolog, Scripting/Perl.

Lectures: M & W, 1:30-2:45p, POST 127
Instructor: Prof. Nancy Reed, office: 314E POST, email: nreed@hawaii.edu, office phone: 956-8498
Office Hours: M & W 11:30-12:15 pm POST 314E or by appointment.
Teaching Assistant: Christopher Foo, POST 314-1 cubicle.
TA office hours: 3:00pm - 4:15pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays and by appointment.
Course email/assignments account: class account Class email: ics313@hawaii.edu,

Required Textbooks:
Programming Language Pragmatics, Third Edition Michael L. Scott, Morgan Kaufmann Pub., April, 2009 (paperback) ISBN-10: 0123745144, ISBN-13: 978-0123745149.
Land of Lisp, Learn to Program in Lisp, One Game at a Time! by Conrad Barski, M.D. No Starch Press. October 2010, 504 pp. (paperback) ISBN: 978-1-59327-281-4.

Optional Text:
Thinking as Computation: A First Course by Hector J. Levesque, 978-0262016995, The MIT Press, (Jan 6, 2012) Strongly recommended unless you already have Prolog experience.

Optional Reference Material:
Unix and Emacs -- Just Enough Unix, ANY Edition Paul K. Andersen McGraw Hill Recommended unless you are already proficient with Unix and Emacs.

Lisp -- Practical Common Lisp, Peter Seibel, Apress, 2005, ISBN: 1590592395, ANSI Common Lisp, Paul Graham, Prentice Hall, 1995, ISBN: 0-133708756, Common Lisp, A gentle introduction to symbolic computation , Touretzky [out of print, link to online copy here ]

Prolog -- Learn Prolog Now http://www.learnprolognow.org/ Programming in Prolog, 4th edition, Clocksin & Mellish, Springer-Verlag, ISBN 3-540-58350-5.

Topics

This course covers Unix and Emacs for software development, history of computing and programming languages, introduction to programming language concepts, syntax and semantics, names, scopes, and bindings, control structures and control abstraction, data types and data abstraction, functional programming with Common Lisp and/or Scheme, logic programming and Prolog, scripting Languages and Perl.

Prerequisites

Prerequisites inclulde a C or better in both ICS 212 - Program Structure and ICS 241 - Discrete Mathematics for Computer Science II.

Learning Objectives

ICS 313, Programming Language Theory, covers the syntax, control structures, data structures, binding and scope of programming languages. It also introduces alternative programming paradigms, including functional languages like Lisp, logic programming languages like Prolog, and scripting languages like Perl. Students will write programs in functional and logic languages during this course.

Before the end of the course, all students should:

Understand the differences among programming languages and paradigms as well as how these differences impact the development and maintenance of programs, such as development ease (time and effort), program correctness (including errors), code maintenance (understandability and extensibility), code execution (speed and image size), and code portability (hardware and compilers/interpreters).
Have the ability to program in different programming paradigms/styles, including functional and logic languages like Common Lisp or Scheme and Prolog.
Understand scripting languages such as Pearl or JavaScript and their use.
Have the ability to represent and solve problems at an abstract level before coding them in a particular language.
Have the ability to understand new programming language concepts, and assess the ease with which these features may be implemented in a programming language.
Be able to choose the best programming language(s) for a project. Justify the choice with well-reasoned arguments based on language characteristics and the development environment such as the expertise of the programmer(s), resources and workplace politics.

Course Requirements

Grades in this course are based on 5 criteria. There will be (7-9) written and/or programming assignments (15%), a programming project plus demonstration (in a group or alone) (15%), quizzes on most Wednesdays (20%), one written midterm examination (20%), and a final examination (30%).
Programs must execute and meet the assignment specifications to earn full credit. Good code-writing style, comments and documentation are also required.
Note: A reasonable attempt at ALL assignments AND the project must be submitted to pass the course. I.e. failure to submit any assignment before solutions are posted, is an automatic fail.

KOKUA Program

If you feel you need accommodations due to special circumstances, please contact the KOKUA Program (V/T) at 956-7511 or 956-7612 in room 013 of the QLCSS, and/or speak with me privately to discuss your specific needs. I am happy to work with you and the KOKUA Program to provide the support you need to succeed in this course.

Academic Conduct

Students are bound by the student conduct code at ( http://www.studentaffairs.manoa.hawaii.edu/policies/conduct_code/ ). What does this mean? Exams and quizzes must be done individually. Assignments are to be done individually unless explicitly stated otherwise for the specific assignment. Discussing approaches to programming assignments with classmates is fine. Copying answers, sharing code, submitting solutions from the Internet or other sources as your own work are not permitted.
If you use ideas from any source to complete your assignments, including printed and electronic, you must cite the source in your assignment/program files. For example, if you use a book, note the title, author(s) and page numbers. For a web page, enter the URL and date accessed. Journal papers, conference proceedings, and other sources must be identified with the conference name, location and publisher in addition to the title, authors and page numbers. If you use exact text, it must be properly quoted. If you use work you did for a previous course, this must be noted at the top of the page.

It is each student's responsibility to prevent others from seeing and/or copying their work, and to report incidents of suspected cheating at UH. Cheaters will be reported and risk expulsion from the university.

I hope you learn a lot and enjoy this course. Go back to the Top of this page