CPSC 511:
Programming Languages Fundamentals and Applications

News

• First lecture: Monday September 10th, 12:30-2 pm.
• Lectures every Monday, Wednesday 12:30-2pm DMP 101.

Important Links

• Schedule: Lecture by lecture schedule, of topics covered, papers to read, deadlines etc.
• Projects Ideas: An evolving list of ideas for potential course projects.
• Paper reviews: Some guidelines on how to write a review and a template "review form" to use.
• Mini Conference: Schedule for the "mini conference" at the end of term, with links to papers submitted by the students.
• Java Code: An ongoing attempt at porting some of the various LiLa implementation into Java.
  

Why take this course

Increasingly programming language techniques are being used to solve a variety of hard problems in software systems. Partial evaluation is used to automatically synthesize optimized implementations for spefic deployment contexts, from more generic high-level implementations. Sophisticated type systems and static analysis tools are being developed to find different kinds of bugs in software systems. Reflection is used throughout web servers to enable dynamic deployment and configuration of webservices. Continuation passing style can be used to reconcile the stateless web-based http protocol with the implementation of statefull web applications, without ending up with hopelessly convoluted code.

This course will give you a solid foundation in programming language techniques and show you how programming language experts think about building complex systems.

Course Overview

We will cover a number of fundamental ideas in programming languages, and for each idea we will trace a bridge from the basic idea, through advanced research, to practical applications. Following is a tentative list of topics we will likely cover.

This list of topics may change based on the specific interests of the students in the course. We will use a variety of tools to explore each topic area, including writing simple interpreters as semantic models and developing simple applications with tools such as the PLT web server, the Esc/Java static checker, the AspectJ programming environment, MetaML, etc.

• Core semantics of procedural programming languages:
• Core semantics: higher-order procedures, scoping mechanisms, environments, continuations.
• Real world application: using continuations to prevent important, but unfortunately common, problems with web applications.
• Possible projects: implement a web application with the PLT Webserver.
• Object-oriented and aspect-oriented programming languages:
• Semantic models of simplified OO (Java-like) and AO (AspectJ-like) languages
• Efficient implementation of OO and AO languages.
• Other OO and AO languages.
• Real World Application: Large-scale AOSD for middleware.
• Possible projects: implement/refactor something in the AspectJ aspect-oriented programming language.
• Type checking and static program verification:
• Basic concepts, principles and operation of type checkers and other static verification tools.
• ESC/Java an advanced static verifier for Java code.
• Real World Application: Checking System Rules Using System-Specific, Programmer-Written Compiler Extensions..
• Possible project: Download and install ESC Java, "Extended Static Checker" and apply to find bugs in some existing Java code base.
• Partial evaluation automatic program specialization
• Basic operation and principles of online and offline program specializers.
• Futamura projections: making compilers from interpreters, making compiler compilers from partial evaluators, etc.
• Staged execution in MetaML.
• Application: Aspect weaving through partial evaluation.
• Real world application: The Sythesis Kernel.
• Possible project: download and install "Similix" and apply it to one of our semantic models to derive a more efficient "compiled" implementation.

Course Style

We will do this by building working model implementations in Scheme. These models will be simplified and emphasize conceptual understanding of high-level semantics and key ideas in implementation.

On the other hand we will look also at how some of these ideas have have actual impact and applications in the construction of real systems.

Your work

In this course, you will:

• Study a number of Scheme model implementations.
• Some small home works, extending or working with the aforementioned models.
• Some small home works downloading and using some of the real world tools we discuss in lecture.
• Read some research papers and prepare for a class discussion by writing a short review.
• Do a larger project of your choice.
• Write a report about your project and submit it at the end of term.