CS 15-212: Principles of Programming
(Spring 2012)

Course Information  [  Logistics  |  Course Links  |  Calendar of Classes  |  Coursework Calendar  ]



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Logistics

Lectures:  Su,Tu   10:30 - 11:50 (room 1190)
Recitations:  Mo,We   16:00 - 16:50 (room 1190)

Class Webpage:   http://qatar.cmu.edu/cs/15212


Instructors:   Iliano Cervesato
Office hours:  by appointment (check schedule)
Office:  CMU-Q 1008
Email: 
     Thierry Sans
Office hours:  by appointment
Office:  CMU-Q 1019
Email: 
TA:   Manoj Reddy
Office hours:  Su 13:00 - 14:00, Th 9:30 - 10:30 and by appointment
Office:  ARC
Email: 

Course Links

Calendar of Classes

Click on a class day to go to that particular lecture or recitation. Due dates for homeworks are set in bold. The due date of the next homework blinks.

Coursework Calendar

About this course  [  Description  |  Prerequisites  |  Feedback  |  Software  |  Readings  |  Grading  |  Assessment  ]

Description

This course has the purpose of introducing students who have had experience with basic data structures and algorithms to more advanced skills, concepts and techniques in programming and Computer Science in general. This will be accomplished along three dimensions.

Prerequisites

You must have completed CS 15-251 (Great Theoretical Ideas in Computer Science).

Feedback

It is my goal to make this course successful, stimulating and enjoyable. If at any time you feel that the course is not meeting your expectations or you want to provide feedback on how the course is progressing for you, please . If you would like to provide anonymous comments, please use the feedback form on the course home page or slide a note under my door. Comments of general interest will be answered on the course discussion board.

Software

The course relies extensively on the programming language Standard ML (SML) and related utilities, mainly ML-Lex, ML-Yacc and Concurrent ML. The particular implementation we will be working with is Standard ML of New Jersey (SML/NJ), version 110.73.

SML on Your Own Laptop

The most convenient way to use SML is to install a personal copy of SML/NJ on your laptop. For Windows laptops, download this file and follow these instructions. If you run a different operating systems, read here.

SML at CMU-Q

A reference build has also been made available in the Unix clusters. To run it, you need to login into your Unix account. In Windows, you do this by firing PuTTy and specifying unix.qatar.cmu.edu as the machine name. When the PuTTy window comes up, type sml, do your work, and then hit CTRL-D when you are done.

You can edit your files directly under Unix (the easiest way is to run the X-Win32 utility from Windows and then run the Emacs editor from the PuTTy window by typing emacs - see also this tutorial).

If you want to do all this from your own laptop, you first need to install X-Win32 from here. PuTTy is pre-installed in Windows.

Documentation

Useful documentation can be found on the SML/NJ web site. The following files will be particularly useful:

Readings

The 15-212 Wiki

The material for all lectures can be found on the 15-212 wiki. This is wiki, not a textbook. The main differences are:

Further References

Grading

This is a 12 unit course.

Late Policy

Every student has up to 3 late days. You can use only one late day per homework (this is so that we can discuss assignments in recitation after they are due). No fractional late days: if you submit 1 minute late, you have used up a full late day. You should use late days for emergencies only: if you start early, you will not need them.

Academic Integrity

You are expected to comply with the University Policy on Academic Integrity and Plagiarism.

Collaboration is regulated by the whiteboard policy: you can bounce ideas about an assignment, but when it comes to typing it down for submission, you are on your own — no notes, snapshots, etc., you can at most reconstruct the reasoning from memory.

Assessment

Course Objectives

This course seeks to develop students who:

  1. can leverage the mathematical structure of a problem to develop a solution
  2. can use abstraction and modularity to manage complexity
  3. can use formal arguments to prove the correctness of a problem solution
  4. master a non-declarative programming paradigm
  5. have gained advanced skills, concepts and techniques in programming and Computer Science

Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

  1. explain and use basic programming language concepts such as typing, evaluation, declarations, expressions, values, and types
  2. explain and use advanced programming language concepts such as data types, pattern matching, polymorphism, higher-order functions, continuations, exceptions, streams, memoization, modularity, concurrency
  3. design recursive algorithms and develop recursive programs
  4. use mathematical induction to prove program correctness
  5. model problems in Computer Science using lists, trees and graphs
  6. program symbolic solutions to problems using data types and pattern matching
  7. use polymorphism and functional arguments to build reusable program modules
  8. develop abstract and parametric modules for code reusability
  9. write basic concurrent programs correctly
  10. recognize non-computable problems and give formal arguments to support non-computability claims

Schedule of Classes

The course is organized around the following themes:

Weeks 1-4 Weeks 5-7 Weeks 8-10 Weeks 11-14
Inductive definitions Functions Beyond induction Languages and Computation

In this course, there will be two types of lectures:

At a glance ...




© 2012 Iliano Cervesato