Time and Place: | MWF 1:30–2:20, Halligan 111A (room is tentative) |
Email: | comp105-staff@cs.tufts.edu |
Home page: | http://www.cs.tufts.edu/comp/105/ |
Instructor: | Norman
Ramsey, Halligan Extension 006 Office hours Monday 4:15–4:45, Wednesday 4:00–5:00, Thursday 2:00–3:00, and by appointment. |
Teaching Assistants: | Andrew Gallant |
Engineering Fellows: | Lise Brodzik, TripAdvisor |
Bill McKeeman, The MathWorks | |
Joe Stoy, Bluespec | |
Mike Rieker, VMware | |
Tucker Taft, SofCheck | |
Recitation sections: | Monday 3:00-4:15 (Rieker, Halligan 111A) |
Monday 4:30-5:45 (Stoy, Halligan 111B) | |
Wednesday 10:30-11:45 (Brodzik, Miner Hall Room 110) | |
Friday 10:30-11:45 (McKeeman, Halligan 111B) | |
Friday 2:30-3:45 (Taft, Halligan 127) | |
Friday 3:00-4:15 (Ramsey, Halligan 111A) |
COMP 105 provides an introduction to the study of programming languages as an intellectual discipline. The elements of this discipline include specifications based on abstract syntax, lambda calculus, type systems, and dynamic semantics. You must be comfortable with recursion and with basic mathematical ideas and notations for sets, functions, etc.
COMP 105 uses the case-study method to give you experience with languages that go beyond the simple imperative paradigm. Case studies will cover languages from the functional, logic, and object-oriented families. Example languages may include Standard ML, Smalltalk, CLU, Scheme, and Prolog.
Case studies are reinforced by suitable programming exercises. COMP 105 assumes previous experience programming in imperative languages like C, C++, or Java. Good programming skills are essential, and we assume some knowledge of C. Plan to complete ten or twelve programming assignments over the course of the term. The more interesting or amusing assignments include Hindley-Milner type inference, arbitrary-precision arithmetic, and some game-playing programs.
COMP 105 is suitable for graduate students, especially those whose primary research interests lie in related fields such as compilers, software systems, or artificial intelligence. Graduate students whose primary interests lie in programming languages may find that COMP 105 overemphasizes programming practice and underemphasizes foundations.
Note: COMP 105 does not cover implementation of conventional, imperative programming languages, which are covered in COMP 181 (Compilers).
We're using a version of Moscow ML that is deemed unready for release to the public, but if you want to run it on your own machine, I have put a tarball online.