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Course information
This course is an introduction to the theory, design, and implementation of programming languages. Topics covered in this course include: formal semantics of programming languages (operational, axiomatic, denotational, and translational), type systems, higher-order functions and lambda calculus, laziness, continuations, dynamic types, monads, objects, modules, concurrency, and communication.
See the lecture schedule for more detailed information on topics covered.
Course staff
- Instructor: Stephen Chong
- Teaching Fellows:
- Diego Gutierrez
- Ye Joo Han
- Kevin Zhang
All questions and issues related to assignments, course content, etc., should be sent to Turn on JavaScript to view the email address or discussed on Ed. Questions related to grades, special consideration, etc. can be sent directly to Prof. Chong. In general, sending email to individual course staff will delay a response. Note that course staff may take up to 48 hours to respond.
Time and place
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11:15am-12:30pm, SEC LL2.224 Lecture Hall.
Prerequisites
Computer Science 51. Also recommended is Computer Science 121. Students must have good programming skills, be very comfortable with recursion, proofs, basic mathematical ideas and notations, including sets, relations, functions, and induction. See the schedule for some suggested background reading on some of these concepts. Feel free to contact the instructor if you have questions about the requirements or other aspects of the course.
Two points to emphasize: (1) this is not an introduction to programming; students should already know how to program, ideally in at least couple of languages. (2) you must be very comfortable with recursion, proofs, basic mathematical ideas and notations, including sets, relations, functions, and induction.
Try the self assessment to help figure out whether you have sufficient mathematical preparation for this course.
Homeworks, exams, and grading
There will be an in-class midterm and a final exam. There will be about 6 homework assignments. Some of the assignments will contain a programming component in OCaml, Coq, and Haskell and some other languages. Prior knowledge of these languages is not required.
- Midterm: March 2. In class.
- Final exam: Friday May 5, 2pm-5pm.
- Homeworks: 6 assignments. Some will contain a programming component in OCaml, Coq, Haskell, and other languages. See the Schedule page for due dates, and the Assignments page for details of the assignments.
Your grade will be determined by a weighted average of your scores on homework assignments, the midterm exam, the final exam, and class participation. The percentage breakdown (roughly and subject to change) is 50% homework assignments, 20% midterm, 25% final exam, and 5% participation (which includes attendance and participation in class, section, and office hours, and contributing to online discussion).
Textbooks
There is no required textbook for the course. In most cases, the class materials should suffice. The instructor will provide written lecture notes where helpful.
See the Resources page for additional material that you can examine.
Lectures/schedule
See here for more information.
Section
Sections will be held starting in the second week of classes, Fridays, 2:15pm-3:30pm in SEC 2.118.
Section attendance is not required. Sections will, for the most part, focus on worked examples and exercises to consolidate material covered in the previous week in class. Section will be recorded and available on the Panopto tab of the course Canvas webpage. You should feel free to come to section with questions. We will release practice problems a few days before section. More information can be found here.
Office hours
Office hours will start in the second week of classes.
We will use this Google calendar for office hour times:
Course Policies
See the Course Policies page for more information about course policies, including Diversity and Inclusion, Inclusive Learning and Accessibility, Mental Health, Financial Aid, Late minutes, Penalties, and Extensions, and Collaboration and Academic Integrity.