CSE 130 Readings

CSE 130: Principles of Programming Languages

Reading Assignments

Notes: Be sure this page gets reloaded, because it may have been updated. Readings for more than 5 days in advance are subject to change. The notes to the texts are mainly intended as supplements rather than as explanations or commentaries. Readings for future dates are subject to change.

Due 6 January:
- Pages v-ix and 1-24 of Sethi, the Preface and Chapter 1, plus the associated notes. Some of this material should already be familiar to you.
- Essay on Comparative Programming Linguistics.
- Scan the Black-Scholes in Multiple Languages website, which gives the Black-Scholes options pricing formula expressed in many different programming languages. This is mainly for amusement, but it can also give you a good feeling for the diversity of programming languages. (Black and Scholes won the Nobel prize in economics for this formula.) In case the Norwegian URL does not work, try this incomplete local copy.
Due 13 January:
- Read the New York Times story on the Ariane 5 rocket failure, and at least skim the full official report for the key technical details; there are also pdf versions of the first and second items.
- Pages 25-53, Chapter 2 of Sethi and the associated notes. The expositions of lexical and abstract syntax in the text are not very good; we will ignore the first, and cover the second in the lectures. In the notes, you may skim the material on attribute semantics and denotational semantics.
Due 20 January:
- Pages 55-86 in Chapter 3 of Sethi and the associated notes; also, skim the rest of Chapter 3, so you are sure you understand the general idea of invariants and how to use them to avoid errors in programs, and that you can read simple C programs.
Due 27 January:
- Chapter 4 of Sethi, pages 101-146, and the associated notes.
Due 3 February:
- Pages 147-181 of Chapter 5 of Sethi and the associated notes.
Due 8 February:
- The rest of Chapter 5 of Sethi, pages 181-203, and the associated notes; you may skip the material on displays at the end, and place less emphasis on implementation details.
Due 17 February:
- Pages 205-252, Chapter 6 of Sethi, and the associated notes, but you may skim 6.4.
Due 24 February:
- Pages 301-340, Chapter 8 of Sethi and the associated notes.
Due 3 March:
- Chapter 9 of Sethi, pages 341-383.
- Higher Order Functions Considered Unnecessary for Higher Order Programming; you should read the paper for its general ideas, and skip the appendix. A postscript version is also available.
- Optional: Some OBJ Examples.
Due 10 March:
- Chapter 11 of Sethi, pages 425-473, and the associated notes; you may skim the material on difference lists (pages 449-450).
- Notes on Internet Languages.
- Reread Essay on Comparative Programming Linguistics; it should make much more sense now you have seen the course content.
- Optional: Perl: The first postmodern computer language (please don't take it too seriously). (See also the official version).

Some basics on using BinProlog 4.00 are at ../230/pl/binpro.html, which also has a link to the BinProlog 4.00 manual.

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