CSCE 330 Fall 2017: Syllabus

The textbooks are:

  • Hector J. Levesque. Thinking as Computation. The MIT Press, 2012 (required text, referred to as [L]). Supplementary materials from the author are available.
  • Graham Hutton. Programming in Haskell. Cambridge University Press, Second Edition, 2017 (required text, referred to as [H]). Supplementary materials from the author, including an errata list, are available.
    • We may also use:
  • Chapter 2 of: Ghezzi, Carlo and Mehdi Jazayeri. Programming Language Concepts, 3rd ed.. Wiley, 1998 (referred to as [G] or [G&J]).
  • Section 7.3, Chapter 8, and Chapter 9 of: Ghezzi, Carlo and Mehdi Jazayeri. Programming Language Concepts, 2nd ed.. Wiley, 1987 (referred to [G&J, 1987]).
  • Chapter 2 of: Allen Tucker and Robert Noonan. Programming Languages: Principles and Paradigms, 2nd ed.. McGraw-Hill, 2007 (referred to as [T].

    • The main (approximately 80% of the time) instructional delivery strategy for this course is lectures. Discussions based on student presentations, videos, quizzes or in-class exercises, and a possible invited talk will make up the remaining time. Student presentations will be spread throughout the second half on the course. The first day of classes is Thursday, August 24, 2017. The last day to withdraw without failure is Monday, October 16, 2017. The last day of classes is Thursday, December 7, 2017. The final exam is Tuesday, December 12, 2017, from 1230-1500 in the classrooms (300 Main B213). This is the regularly scheduled time for courses taught from 1315-1430 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. According to university policy, the exam will last two-and-a-half hours. (See the university exam schedule.)

    See here or for the fall 2017 academic calendar.

    Please see elsewhere in the web pages for the course for additional administrative information.

    WeekLecture Topics
    1: August 24 (Thursday only)Introduction (Notes)
    2: August 29, 31The Prolog Language (Chapters 2-3 [L])
    3: September 5, 7Writing Prolog Programs (Chapter 4 [L])
    4: September 12, 14 Case Study: Satisfying Constraints (Chapter 5 [L])
    5: September 19, 21Case Study: Interpreting Aerial Sketch Maps; Lists in Prolog (Parts of Chapter 6 [L], Chapter 7 [L])
    6: September 26, 28 Case Study: Understanding Natural Language (Chapter 8 [L])
    7: October 3, 5Syntax; Review
    8: October 10, 12 Midterm; FP (Video; Section 7.3 [G&J, 1987])
    9: October 17 (Tuesday only) Haskell: Introduction, Types, and Classes (Chs.1-3 [H])
    10: October 24, 26 Haskell: Introduction, Types, and Classes (Chs.1-3 [H]); Defining Functions (Ch.4 [H])
    11: October 31, November 2 Haskell: List Comprehensions and Recursive Functions (Chs.5-6 [H])
    12: November 7, 9 Haskell: Higher-order Functions (Ch.7 [H])
    13: November 14, 16 Haskell: Declaring Types and Classes and the Countdown Problem (Chs.8-9 [H])
    14: November 21 (Tuesday only) Haskell: Interactive Programming (Ch. 10 [H])
    15: November 28, November 30 Haskell: Lazy Evaluation (Ch.15 [H])
    16: December 5, 7 Student Presentations