1. Evaluation and implementation of programming languages
2. Tools for describing and analyzing languages, including syntax, semantics, and pragmatics
3. Tools to design new languages
4. Programming Paradigms (imperative, functional, logic, object-oriented)

1. Be able to compare and evaluate different programming languages and implement different programming constructs and features (e.g. variables, loops, procedures, dynamic memory).
2. Be able to formally specify the syntax of programming languages.
3. Be able to write a parser and a scanner.
4. Be able to write a translator to convert from one language to another.
5. Be able to describe the semantics of and implement an interpreter for a programming language.
6. Be comfortable with the major programming paradigms and be able to use at least one language from each paradigm.

1. Easier to express algorithmic ideas
2. Better able to formally express concepts
3. Improved ability to select appropriate languages
4. Easier to learn new languages
5. Understand the significance and impact of language choices and constructs
6. Able to design new languages (little languages, interface specifications, protocols)

Prerequisites:

• Undergraduate data structures course (CS260)
• Courses in logic (e.g. CS 270 or ECE 200) and Computer Architecture (e.g. CS 281) would be helpful but are not required.
• All students should be comfortable with at least one object-oriented programming language (e.g. Java, C++, Python)
• It would be helpful to have seen at least two different languages.

Course Requirements and Grading:

• Homework assignments (60%) - 4 at 15% each
• Midterm (20%)
• Final Exam (20%)

Last date to withdraw with a "W" grade:

Topics

1. Week 1: Overview: Computation and Languages (ch. 1)
2. Week 2: Syntax: Grammars and Parsing (ch. 3)
3. Week 3: Parser Generators and Attribute Grammars (ch. 5, 13)
4. Week 4: Interpreters - Assignment and Control Structures (ch. 5, 6, 13.1-2)
5. Week 5: Procedures (ch. 8)
6. Week 6: Midterm / Functional Programming (ch. 11)
7. Week 7: Functional Programming and Lambda Calculus (ch. 11)
8. Week 8: Dynamic Memory Allocation (ch. 8, 11, and SICP)
9. Week 9: Semantics of Functional Programs (ch. 11, 13, and SICP)
10. Week 10: Query Languages and Logic Programming (ch. 12)

Exams

• Turn your phones off! Beepers too.
• You must bring photo ID to the exams.
• You may bring blank paper to the exam, either for side work or extra room. If you use any of it, you must submit it w/your exam.
• I do allow a dictionary for purposes of translation (of spoken languages).  So, Aramaic-Korean would be okay, for example, but Oxford's unabridged would not.
• If you are entitled to any considerations on exams, it is your responsibility to remind me, prior to each exam, so that arrangements can be made.

Assignments

There will be 4 assignments throughout the term. You are encouraged to look at the problems suggested in each lecture.

Any programs must run (and will be graded on) the tux cluster, the CS Dept. machines: tux.cs.drexel.edu .

Submission

Misc

• If you email me, please identify the course you're taking and your name, especially if you mail me from your Rocky_Racoon@AppleRecords.com account.
• More on absences (from work/exams/quizzes): If you work for a living and are sent out of town, I understand. If your husband/wife/child is ill, I understand. We can work something out.
  If you wish to go on holiday w/your family, or spend an extra week canoeing w/your friends, I've been there, would take canoeing or sailing over school any time, but that's on you.
Asking me will only make me jealous, and will not help things.
• Along similar lines, leaving early for breaks or the term-end is seriously frowned upon. The term schedule is published at least a year in advance, and the finals schedule is published at least 4 weeks before the term's end. After you're done your finals I'm still grading, and have no home to return to, so, again, I probably won't be real sympathetic.
• I'm not here to sink your battleship; I've been a teacher for a long time, and really would just like you all to be prepared to survive the rest of your degree program, and maybe find programming fun. The burden of actually learning, however, lies on you.