Principles of Programming Languages 2003

This year, the assessment will include in-class tests, which amount to 20% of the final mark.

We will be using the new second edition of the textbook Essentials of Programming Languages (EOPL). It is not compatible with the first edition: there is new material, and different syntax.

This module is not about a litany of different programming languages. If you want to see that kind of thing, have a look at 99 Bottles of Beer. This one has a sound mathematical foundation in Turing machines.;)

In the first few lectures, we will look at the basics of the programming language Scheme. To get you started, you could use the book The Little Schemer, or the Scheme Defintion .

The implementation Dr Scheme is available under Unix. To set it up, type

setup Drscheme
    

drscheme
    

An old exam

• Handout on 27.1.03
• Handout on 3.2.03
• Handout on 4.2.03
• Handout and another handout on 10.2.03
  Exercise: implement the environments in Java, using this interface:
  

  interface Env { public int lookup(String s) throws Exception; }
  

• Handout on 11.2.03
• Handout on 17.2.
• Another book worth looking at is Abelson and Sussman
• Handout on 24.2.
• Slide on 25.2.
• A handout on types
• A CPS interpreter in C

Relevant links

• Standard ML of New Jersey is a language much like Scheme, but with automatic type inferrence
• Generic Java adds a form of parametric polymorphism to Java
• The textbook Essentials of Programming Languages (second edition)
• The official Definition of Scheme, known as Revised(5) Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme . As language definitions go, this is concise and comprehensible.
• Dr Scheme. This is a free implementation of Scheme available for many platforms. You are encouraged to experiment with Scheme.
• An introductory article by me on Continuations, Functions and Jumps.
• A lambda calculus reducer. Try it on ((\x.(x x)) (\x.(x x x))).
• A useful piece of background knowledge is the lambda calculus. See for instance Achim Jung's course notes from second year (with mugshots!).
• schemers.org has lots of information on Scheme
• A major use of Scheme is as the GNU extension language GUILE