CSE 6341:: Foundations of Programming Languages, Home page (Neelam's section)

CSE 6341: Programming Languages (Neelam's section)

Course Summary: This is a theory of programming languages course. The main goal of the course is to study formal ways of defining syntax and semantics of programming languages. The main topics are attribute grammars; operational, axiomatic, and denotational semantics of languages.
Prerequisites: Undergrad courses in formal languages/automata theory; and in programming languages.
This is a graduate core class; if you are an undergrad and have strong math abilities (at least B/B- in the undergraduate courses), you should do ok; if not, you should probably not take this class.
Credits: 3
Semester: Au '18
Place and Time:
- Dreese Lab 264; M, W, F at 11:30pm - 12:25pm
- First day: Wednesday, Aug. 22
- No classes on: 9/3 (Mon.); 10/12 (Fri); 11/12 (M); 11/21 (W); 11/23 (F);
- Last day of class: Wednesday, Dec. 5
- Final exam: Thursday, Dec. 13, at 10:00 am-11:45 am (*Note the day and time!*)
  Important: Do NOT make plans to leave town before the finals on Dec. 13. If you have already made such plans, either change them or drop the course.
Instructor: Neelam Soundarajan
Office: DL 579.
Office hours: M, W, F: 12:30 pm - 1:30 pm Other hours by appointment.
E-mail (to neelam@cse) questions strongly encouraged.
Grader:
- Name: Feilong Liu
- Off. hrs: T, R, 12:30-1:30
- Office: Caldwell Lab, 418
- E-mail: liu.3222@osu.edu
Piazza forum
Note: Piazza uses your "osu.edu" addresses; if you log in with your "buckeyemail.osu.edu" address, you may run into problems.
Course Notes:
- Part 1: Attribute grammars
- Part 2: Operational semantics (LISP); Lisp interpreter details
  (Why functional programming (see also this and this).)
- Part 3: Axiomatic semantics
Assignments/Labs:
- Assignment 1 (Due: Sept. 14)
  Here is a key.
- Assignment 2 (Due: Sept. 26)
  Here is a key for the homework. [There is a small error in the answer to the second question. It uses a function, nxtAddr() to obtain the "next available address". But do that, you need to know how many addresses have already been used; so this function needs to have the value current SymTab() as an argument.]
- Lisp Interpreter project, Part 1 (Due: 11:59 pm, due 11:59 pm, Oct. 22 (postponed from Oct. 17)).
  Some comments on the input routine (part 1; part 2);
  some test data.
  Grading template; Grades (by code);
- Lisp Interpreter project, Part 2 (Due: 11:59 pm, Nov. 5). (Here is some test data.)
- Assignment 3 (Due: Nov. 7; no late assignments)
Announcements:
- The first mid-term will be on Fri., Sept. 28, at the usual class time.
  Topics will be everything we have discussed/will be discussing in class since the start of the term until the end of class on Sept. 26.
  You may bring a single "cheat sheet" (size 8"x11"), double-sided, legible font, to the midterm. Write your name at the top of the sheet and turn it in with your exam.
  Here is a review, a sample midterm, and solutions for the sample midterm. Please email if you notice any problems.
  Some comments on the midterm.
  The grade distribution is here.
Links:
Books (references):
Unfortunately, there are no good suitable textbooks for the course. You will have to rely on class notes and your own notes. I will hand out hardcopies of slides; but they will simply be bullet-points/outlines of what we talk about in class. YOU have to write your own notes.
Most important: DO NOT miss classes.
The following books cover some of the material we will be talking about and will be of some use. The first is (or should be) on closed-reserve in the 18th Avenue library. The next three three are available on-line:
1. Formal specification of programming languages, by F. Pagan (copy of a few pages).
2. Lisp 1.5 programmer's manual, by J. McCarthy and others
  You can use the Common Lisp on stdlinux by typing "clisp" at command line.
  You can also obtain CMU-CL for your own machine.
3. Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (Scheme book) (long, but good; it shows how to write fairly complex systems in Scheme which is a dialect of Lisp).
4. Formal syntax and semantics of programming languages, by Kurtz and Slonnegar
  The book is available on-line (local copy). The following may also be useful: Slonneger's course.)
5. May be useful: Semantics with applications, Nielson and Nielson
6. Abstract interpretation (not currently part of 755 but may be in the future)
7. Nasko's notes on types
8. For fun: "Truth" about C++
9. Background: Here are some possible books for background material:
  - Sebesta, Concepts of programming languages: If you do a search, you will find it easily, including .pdf copies of the book. We used to use this book in in CSE 3341. It is easy to read but technically a bit weak.
  - Scott, Programming language pragmatics: This is the book we currently use in 3341; it is the opposite of Sebesta; technically solid but difficult to read. Again, you will find it on-line. These two books should give you a fair amount of knowledge of the kind you get in an undergrad course on concepts of programming languages.
  - Martin, Theory of computation: If you have not had any course on automata theory, etc., this book is reasonable; again, you should be able to find it on-line.
Other:
- Please read the Piazza forum regularly and participate in the discussions in the group. Past experience shows that students who do so, do well in the course.
- GDB:
  - Tutorial on GDB (a must read if you don't regularly use a debugger).
  - Info on GDB (extracted from (Unix Programming Tools)
- Recent guidelines for writing good C++ code (definitely worth reading if you use C++)
- Java tip (based on a student post to course newsgroup in an earlier offering of the course):
```
To get code running with java 1.6  you may need to use the
'subscribe' command to subscribe to JDK6, but you may receive some
heap size errors. If so,  try the following settings parameters: 
	-Xms512k (memory heap start size 512 kilobytes)
	-Xmx1024m (memory heap max size 1024 megabytes)

	Both should be invoked at the same time and you may test
	different heap sizes. Our recommendation is 16m to start and
	256m to max.
What worked for me (I couldn't figure out a way to set this
permanently), was to use java calls as "java -Xms16m -Xmx256m somefile".
```
- Please check your OSU e-mail regularly. Please do not send email from other email accounts you may have. Please do not include non-English characters in your email. Please do not send attachments without first checking.
  If the grader has problems running your lab, he/she will send mail to your OSU address and it is your responsibility to respond promptly.