Programming Languages
G22.2110-001, Summer 2007

News

- posted final questions and example solutions
- Good bye and good luck!

General information

Objectives

• Help you use the programming languages that you already know more effectively.
• Make you familiar with language paradigms and features that you may not yet know.
• Teach you how to teach yourself new programming languages more easily.
• Show you concepts that will help you in other fields of computer science, beyond programming languages.
• Get you started in preparing for the MS core exam in programming languages.

Schedule

Date	Lecture and recitation topic	hw	Reading assignment
Th 5/17	Introduction and syntax	hw01	Scott 1.2, 1.3, 2.1
Th 5/24	Imperative languages (Python)	hw02	Scott 6.0, 6.1.0-6.1.1; van Rossum 1-5
Th 5/31	Functional languages (Scheme)	hw03	Scott 10.0, 10.2, 10.3.0-10.3.4; Candolin
Th 6/7	Names, scopes, and binding	hw04	Scott 3.2, 3.3.0-3.3.3, 3.3.6
Th 6/14	Low-level languages (C)	hw05	Scott 7.7.0-7.7.1; Drexel 1-10
Th 6/21	Midterm exam
Th 6/28	Types and modules (Ada)	hw06	Scott 7.1.0-7.1.3, 7.2.0-7.2.2; Wheeler 1-6, 8-9
Th 7/5	Object-oriented languages (Java)	hw07	Scott 9.1, 9.4.3; Sun classes, objects, more on classes, interfaces, inheritance, strings, packages
Th 7/12	Subroutines	hw08	Scott 8.1, 8.2.0, 8.3.0-8.3.1, 8.5.0-8.5.2
Th 7/19	Parametric polymorphism (SML)	hw09	Scott 7.2.4 (on CD); Cumming
Th 7/26	Concurrency	hw10	Scott 12.3.4-12.3.5, 12.4.2-12.4.3
Th 8/2	Final exam

Grading

• Two exams: a midterm and a final.
• Grades will be calculated to 25% from assignments, 30% from the midterm, and 45% from the final.
  • Homework assignments every week, many of which involve programming.
  • Both exams are closed book, you are not allowed to use any books or notes.
  • The final exam is cumulative, it will cover material from the entire semester.
• You are encouraged to collaborate with your class mates on homework assignments. But you must write up and turn in your own answers, and in your answers, you must indicate whether and with whom you collaborated. And obviously, you are on your own for the exams. See the academic dishonesty policy.
• The policy for late assignments is as follows:
  • If you submit at least 1 minute late, but at most 3 hours late, you receive 50% of the points for that homework.
  • Otherwise, late homeworks are only acceptable if the lateness is caused by circumstances beyond your control, such as illness or a missed flight.
  • In this case, you only get the points for the homework if you provide official documentation, such as a doctor's certificate, for the reason why your homework is late.
• Class score distribution (as of the midterm):
  • midterm scores: 100 98 98 98 95 94 92 92 91 84 83 82 80 68 68
  • cumulative score = sum(hw01...hw04)*25/200 + midterm*75/100
  • cumulative scores: 100 99 97 96 96 95 93 93 92 85 85 83 80 73 71
• Class score distribution (as of the final exam):
  • final scores: 100 98 98 98 97 96 96 96 94 88 84 82 66 49 0
  • cumulative score = sum(hw01...hw09)*25/450 + midterm*30/100 + final*45/100
  • cumulative scores: 100 97 97 96 96 95 95 95 91 90 87 79 73 67 37

Examples

Code examples from homeworks. The file names end in ".txt", so that your web browser will display or download the code when you click on the link. If you would like to write some more code on your own, the table gives you some ideas for extending the code examples.

Description	Language	File	Practice ideas
Data formatter	Python	hw01-py-example.txt	- allow escaped doublequotes in values - sort the table by a user-specified column - support relational select, project, and join
Differentiator	Scheme	hw02-scm-example.txt	- other differentation rules - further simplification - omit spurious parentheses in toStrng function
Linked list	C	hw05-c-example.txt	- fix that bug - provide an interactive driver - implement concatenation, sorting, reverse
Stack	Ada	hw06-ada-driv.txt hw06-ada-spec.txt hw06-ada-body.txt	- change internal representation from array to list - make robust for unexpected inputs - interpret operators: pop operands, push result
Stack	Java	hw07-java-driver.txt hw07-java-intvector.txt hw07-java-intstack.txt	- change internal representation from array to list - make robust for unexpected inputs - interpret operators: pop operands, push result
Statistics	SML	hw08-sml-example.txt	- compute geometric mean or median - turn standard_deviation_helper into nested function - do excursions from Cumming tutorial

See also