San Jose State University

CS 252 - Advanced Programming Languages

Cay S. Horstmann

Fall 2009

For meeting times and location, office hours, and contact information, please visit http://www.sjsu.edu/people/cay.horstmann.

The schedule is subject to frequent change; visit it before each class meeting.

Description

This course covers advanced issues in programming languages of current interest.

Topics covered:

• Lambda calculus 
• Type systems, type parameterization, and type inference
• Modern control abstractions (in particular, closures and continuations)
• Implementation of objects, meta-object protocols, and domain-specific languages
• Language support for concurrency
• Logic programming

For the official catalog description, please visit http://info.sjsu.edu/web-dbgen/catalog/departments/CS-courses.html.

Why take this course? Programming languages are once again a hot topic. Traditional languages such as C++ and Java have serious limitations, and their users have become restless. Have a look at dzone.com and observe how many blogs are about Scala, Groovy, Ruby, and other emerging languages. You will learn what is special about these new languages, what kinds of problems they solve that are difficult in traditional languages, and how they aim to make software developers more productive. Most importantly, you will learn to analyze trends in programming language design and to make good language choices for your projects.

Prerequisites

CS 152, in particular functional programming (Scheme or a related language), and compilation and runtime data structures (symbol tables, stack frames, etc.). If you are registered for the class, you must email me your answers to the prerequisite quiz by 23:59 of the day indicated in the schedule, or I will drop you from the class for failure to fulfill the prerequisites.

Specifically, the following skills are assumed:

• Understand the roles of interpreters, compilers, and virtual machines
• Read and produce context-free grammars
• Write recursive-descent parsers for simple languages, by hand or with a parser generator
• Understand variable scoping and lifetimes
• Write interpreters for simple languages that involve arithmetic expressions, bindings of values to names, and function calls
• Understand type systems
• Understand the implementation of procedure calls and stack frames
• Produce programs in a functional programming language in excess of 200 LOC

Textbook

There is no required text. The following books are recommended.

John C. Mitchell, Concepts in Programming Languages, Cambridge University Press 2003

Martin Odersky, Lex Spoon, and Bill Venners, Programming in Scala, Artima 2008

Student Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this course, the successful student will be able to

• Demonstrate a basic understanding of the lambda calculus
• Program in a functional language at an advanced level
• Demonstrate understanding of the theoretical foundations of logic programming and basic competency in a logic programming language
• Reason about type systems, generic types, and type inference
• Reason about language design and its impact on language translation and runtime support, with an emphasis on advanced features such as closures, exceptions, continuations, concurrency, and domain-specific languages
• Demonstrate knowledge of an advanced topic of current interest, as chosen by the instructor
• Demonstrate the ability to carry out independent research and report the results orally and in writing.

Course Requirements

Exams

Two in-class exams (10% per exam) and a final exam (25%). Exams cannot be made up, except for reasons of illness, as certified by a doctor, or documentable extreme emergency. Makeup exams may be oral.

Programming Assignments

Four assignments (10% per assignment). Schedule your time well to protect yourself against unexpected problems. I suggest you ignore the official deadlines and complete the assignments 48 hours earlier. Late work is not accepted, and there is no extra credit or makeup work.

Project

One individual project (15%), assigned by the instructor. Late work is not accepted, and there is no extra credit or makeup work.

Class Attendance

Class attendance is not optional. I expect each student to be present, punctual, and prepared at every scheduled class.

Laptops

You will be required to bring a wireless laptop to all (!) classes and exams. You need to have the following tools installed on your laptop:

• Scala 2.8.0 (alpha). It requires Java 6.0_14 or later
• Eclipse or NetBeans and the Scala plugin
• A bash compatible shell (bash on Linux or Mac OS X, Cygwin on Windows)

Grading Policy

Exams are curved and given letter grades with + or -. Each graded task (assignment, project, etc.) is graded as a letter grade, using the following scale.

A = all (or almost all) of the task solved and delivered in a professional manner
B = most of the task solved, but at least one key issue missing, or significant issues with delivery
C = some of the task solved, with at least half of the key issues resolved, but at least two key issues missing
D = a solution has been attempted, with at least one but but less than half of the key issues resolved
F = no solution has been attempted, or the attempted solution did not resolve any of the key issues of the task

Letter grades are converted into number grades and weighted with the percentages given in the Course Requirements section. The weighted average is rounded towards the nearest letter grade, which is your class grade.

Miscellaneous Policies

Add Policy: To add the course, you must submit your solution to the prerequisite quiz. I will randomly choose among add requests that I receive before the second class meeting time, and in the order of receipt thereafter. If there is space, I will reply to your email with an add code. You must use your add code within 48 hours and email me to confirm that you added the class, or the add code will be reassigned to someone else.

Publicly Viewable Work: Your class work (including homework, exam, and project work) may be viewable by other students of this course. Your grades will not be viewable by others.

Copyright of Materials: All materials created by the instructor for this course, including lectures, handouts, homeworks, exams, solutions, projects, and so on, are copyrighted property of the instructor. You may transscribe or record lectures or copy course materials for the use of yourself and other students registered in this course. You may not sell or give transscriptions or recordings of lectures or copies of course materials to others without the prior written consent of the instructor.