The compilation lab is now posted.

Thu 4 April: Lab 6 posted

The REBOL lab is now posted.

Thu 7 Mar: Lab 5 posted

The type-checking lab is now posted.

Plus, here are some links on "Shooting yourself in the Foot" with various programming languages:

• this one looks comprehensive

• another one

• yet another one

And finally, another language list, but with pithy quotes and the like, is here.

Wed 20 Feb: Some sample expressions to parse

Here are some sample expressions for Lab 3. All of these should work OK (i.e., they are valid). I'll post another file of invalid ones later. (Remember that you need not give good error messages, but you should reject all invalid inputs and properly echo (parenthesized) valid inputs.)

And here are some examples of invalid expressions.

Thu 24 Jan: Sample input files for Lab #1 are available here on the web or (better) through the L drive in the classes/cs348/inputs directory (there are 9 files in all). You should access the files directly through the file system or make copies on your H drive, as browsers will mess up the formatting (especially tabs). For your demo, be prepared to show how your program handles these files as input.

Lectures

Some resources on the C programming language

Many of the keywords and much of the syntax of the C language is deceptively similar to cognate constructs in Java: nevertheless, there are huge differences between the languages both at the conceptual level and in the nitty-gritty details which matter so much in getting a program to run. In particular, you should note that:

• C is a structured, imperative language, not an object-oriented language (so there are no objects as such);
• new dynamic storage regions must be allocated explicitly by the programmer, using calls to the malloc function (i.e., there's no "new");
• C is not as strongly typed as Java: many standard programmers' techniques rely on "punning" between two types;
• arrays and references (really pointers in C) are rather different in C than in Java (see this explanation from the list below);

Here is a link to a sample C program using structs which I will be using in lecture as a guide to C syntax.

Here is a list of on-line courses and notes on C and some of its tr=ickier aspects:

• a list of C learning resources (some repeated below)
• a quick introduction to C
• a longer set of class notes for a class on C
• a specific tutorial on the role of pointers, arrays and addresses in C
• another C tutorial

So far we have had an introductory lecture on the basics of language (syntax and semantics, types of language, etc.; no on-line notes for this one yet) and an overview of programming languages with some interactive demos of APL, Rebol, Squeak, Haskell and Toontalk.

See also the "figs" directory of pre-drawn figures used in lecture.

Here is "collected information on about 2350 computer languages, past and present", as of 1994, courtesy of Bill Kinnersley of the University of Kansas.

Lab Assignments

• Lab 1 (impl. track): Language Processing and Statistics
  Assigned 17 Jan; Due 24 Jan

• Lab 2 (impl. track): PC-231 Assembly Language Exercises
  Assigned 24 Jan; Due 31 Jan

• Lab 3 (impl. track): Parsing a Simple Expression Language
  Assigned 31 Jan; Due 14 Feb

• Lab 4 (lang. track): Simple Exercises in the C Programming Language
  Assigned Thu 21 Feb 02; Due Thu 28 Feb 02

• Lab 5 (impl. track): Polymorphic Type Inference for Simple Expressions
  Assigned 7 Mar; Due 28 Mar

• Lab #6: Graphical and Network Applications in REBOL
  Assigned 4 April 02; Due 11 April 02

• Lab 7 (impl. track): Compiling Simple Expressions to PC-231 Assembly
  Assigned 18 Apr; Tent. due ?? May (or by the final exam)

• Lab 8 (lang. track): Object-oriented Programming in Squeak
  Cancelled