Meeting Time:

Mon, Wed 2:50-4:30 Room 164 WVH. First meeting is Monday, 9/14.

News:

Note: There will be no class on Wednesday, 9/9. First class will be Monday, 9/14.

Instructor:

Mitchell Wand
326 WVH, 373-2072, Office Hours: TBA
Email: wand@ccs.neu.edu.
WWW: http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/wand

Grader:

Aaron Turon (turon@ccs.neu.edu), 308 WVH

Goals and Themes:

To learn the basic structures underlying all programming languages. Design and specification of programming languages by combining these structures in various ways. Use of interpreters for language prototyping. Methods for specifying programming language using suitable formal languages. Applications to program analysis.

Prerequisites:

Status as a PhD student in Computer Science (details). Most students will take CS 7400 in their first year; some may delay it until their second year.

Data Structures or the equivalent, and some previous knowledge of Lisp or Scheme. You should be able to solve problems like these (Exercises 1.15-1.16 of EOPL). Successful completion of the Summer Assignment that was in distributed in July satisfies this requirement. [Note for Fall 2009: everyone who turned in a solution solved the problems satisfactorily.]

Some notes on how to prepare yourself for CSG 7400 are here.

Requirements:

The final grade is computed as a weighted average of about 10 machine problems (50%), a midterm (25%), and a final exam (25%). I generally do not give plus or minus grades, but I reserve the right to do so.

This course requires a lot of work: budget your time accordingly.

Communications

Bookmark this page as http://www.ccs.neu.edu/course/cs7400.

The mailing list for the class is csg7400@lists.ccs.neu.edu. Everyone should subscribe to this mailing list by completing the form at https://lists.ccs.neu.edu/bin/listinfo/cs7400. The list consists of the class members, me, and the TA, and is available for you to communicate with the class. Mail to this list is archived. When you write either to me or to the list, it is helpful if you use descriptive subject lines.

If you ask me a question privately, I may post my reply to the class mailing list. If I do so, I will usually attempt to anonymize your question, so that you will not be discouraged from asking questions. On the other hand, if you say something clever and interesting, or if you point out an error that the class should be aware of, I will give you credit where credit is due.

During the course of the term, I may email copies of my gradebook (probably in pdf) so that we can correct any errors. If I do this, I will not post your name. I will post your grades indexed by the last 4 digits of your NUID. The list will be sorted numerically. If you object to your inclusion in this list, please let me know and I will issue you a private 4-digit ID for this purpose.

Last modified: Wed Sep 30 11:40:43 EDT 2009