Course Syllabus: Lectures
Office Hours
Textbooks
Outcomes
Grading Policy
Schedule
Instructor
Dennis Brylow
Email: brylow at cs dot mu dot edu
Office: Cudahy 201C
Lab: Cudahy 310

Meetings
MWF 2:00-2:50pm, CU 412
MWF 2:00-2:50pm, Teams

Office Hours (Virtual - Discord)
Mon   12:00pm  -  1:00pm
Wed   12:00pm  -  1:00pm
Wed   9:00pm  -  10:00pm
Fri   9:00am  -  10:00am
MU CS Department Logo

Textbooks

EOPL Textbook Cover
Essentials of Programming Languages.
Third Edition.
Daniel P. Friedman,
Mitchell Wand.
MIT Press.
ISBN: 9780262062794
TLS Textbook Cover
The Little Schemer.
Fourth Edition.
Daniel P. Friedman
and Matthias Felleisen.
MIT Press.
ISBN: 9780262560993

We will make our way quickly through all of The Little Schemer during the first two weeks. It is a quick read, and an excellent introduction to both functional programming style and the Scheme dialect for beginners.

Essentials of Programming Languages is a challenging book. I have chosen it because the interpreter project at the core of this book is first class (no pun intended,) and I know that together we can make our way through it. A graduate-level course would cover the entire text; we will cover chapter 1-4, 7, and 9. I will assign many of the problems contained in EOPL, and others may make excellent exam questions.

For software, I recommend https://racket-lang.org/ for your Scheme development environment. The Marquette Systems Lab Linux hosts will be the official platform for submitting work through the turnin system to TA-Bot for evaluation.

Course Outcomes

Upon completing this course, students will be able to:

For those of you curious about the inner workings of college-level curricula, COSC 3410 serves an essential role in supporting Student Outcomes as defined by the ABET accreditation of the Computer Science major at Marquette, including:

It also meets ABET CAC criteria for required concepts of programming languages, and contributes to the breadth requirement for languages and platforms.

This course will correspond to the following components in the Joint ACM / IEEE Computer Society Taskforce report, Computer Science Curricula 2013: Curriculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Degree Programs in Computer Science:


Knowledge Unit Core-Tier 1 Hours Core-Tier 2 Hours Includes Electives
PL/Functional Programming 3 4 -
PL/Basic Type Systems 1 4 -
PL/Program Representation 1 -
PL/Language Translation 3 -
PL/Syntax Analysis Y
PL/Compiler Semantic Analysis Y
PL/Type Systems Y
PL/Formal Semantics Y

Course Policies

Grades

Grades will be calculated using the following formula:
Projects 60% Weekly individual or team projects and homework assignments
Reading Quizzes 5% Quizzes on the textbook readings
Midterm Exam 20% Midterm exams (2)
Final Exam 15% Final exam

Grades will be assigned using the standard formula: A: [93, 100]; A-: [90, 93); B+: [86, 90); B: [82, 86); B-: [78, 82); C+: [74, 78); C: [70, 74); C-: [66, 70); D+: [62, 66); D: [58, 62); F: [0, 58)
At the instructor's discretion, grades may be "curved" up; grades will not be curved down.

Grades will be routinely posted in the gradebook on the course D2L site, as they become available.

Attendance

Student attendance will not be explicitly tracked in this course, and will not directly impact student grades. However, students who routinely miss class discussions or lectures should expect to be unprepared to complete the assignments and exams upon which grades so heavily depend. In short, I don't bother with attendance bean-counting because students who cut class usually fail themselves out of the course before I would need to take any action. Make good decisions.

If you know you will be missing class for a legitimate reason, I appreciate a heads-up, but in accordance with Marquette University Attendance Policies, neither require nor accept documented excuses, except in those specific cases detailed in the policy above. Please try to have a peer in the class take notes in your absence, and get any assignments in ahead of the deadline.

The size and structure of this course will not normally allow me to accept late work under any circumstances. There are enough opportunities for points in the course for most students to miss a few without severe consequences for their grades.

Academic Integrity

All students are expected to abide by Marquette University's Policy on Academic Integrity, and we will proceed under the assumption that everyone has committed themselves to the University's Honor Pledge:

I recognize the importance of personal integrity in all aspects of life and work. I commit myself to truthfulness, honor, and responsibility, by which I earn the respect of others. I support the development of good character, and commit myself to uphold the highest standards of academic integrity as an important aspect of personal integrity. My commitment obliges me to conduct myself according to the Marquette University Honor Code.

The Honor Code has particular implications for computer scientists and engineers, as well as computing professors, whose course work is so readily duplicated and shared in our modern digital world.

For my part, I will strive to ensure that your assignments and exams are engaging, challenging, and worth your investment in time and energy. For your part, I expect you will work hard, strive to learn, and present your work with honesty and integrity.

There will be many opportunities for you to collaborate with your peers in this course, and I strongly encourage you both to seek help when you are stuck, and to share your knowledge with your peers when you have achieved understanding. Problems will only occur if you falsely claim work as your own when it is not, or collaborate when an exam or assignment has been specified to be individual work.

In the unlikely event of an academic integrity violation in this course, Marquette University's Procedures For Incidents of Academic Dishonesty will be closely followed.

COVID-19

This is obviously a uniquely uncertain and difficult time for most, if not all of us. Your instructor, the CS Department, and Marquette are all deeply committed to supporting the safety, health and well-being of all of our students and staff. Toward that end:

We are Marquette, and I consider it to be my job to get as many of you as possible successfully through a challenging class in this chaotic time.

Schedule

Week Topics Readings Assignments
01 Scheme, grammars, inference TLS Ch 1-6, EoPL Ch 1 HW #1 - Scheme
02 Environments, ADTs TLS Ch 7-10, EoPL 2-2.4 HW #2 - Data Structures
03 λ-Calculus, Parsing EoPL 2.5 HW #3 - λ-Calculator
04 Interpreters, Binding EoPL 3-3.2 HW #4 - μLET
05 Parser Generators EoPL Appendix B
06 Closures, Recursion EoPL 3.3-3.4 HW #5 - μλ
07 Scoping, S-Expressions EoPL 3.5-3.7 HW #6 - μREC
08 Side Effects, Statements EoPL 4-4.3 HW #7 - μ;
09 Mutation, Parameter Passing EoPL 4.4-4.5 HW #8 - μ
10 Type Systems EoPL 7-7.3
11 Objects and Classes EoPL 9-9.4
12 Inheritance and Types EoPL 9.5-9.6 HW #9 - μOO
13 History of Programming Languages Various HW #10 - History of Programming Languages
14 Other Languages Various
15 Review    
16 Final Exams  
The instructor reserves the right to adjust this schedule as necessary.

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[Revised 2021 Jan 25 13:51 DWB]