UCLA Computer Science 131, Fall 2010.
Programming Languages

Course objective: Expose the student to an analytic and comparative way of looking at programming languages and their implementation.

• News
• Syllabus
• Programming language resources
• Resources for oral presentations and written reports
• Homework
• Grading

Instructor: Paul Eggert, Boelter 4532J. Office hours are Mondays 11:50–12:50 and Wednesdays 11:00–12:00.

Assistant: Jerry Weng (Jui-Ting Weng) <jtweng@cs.ucla.edu>. Office hours are Tuesdays and Wednesdays 13:00–14:00 in Boelter 4428, except that for the first full week of class the office hours are Wednesday 12:00–14:00.

Lecture, 4 hours; laboratory, 2 hours; outside study, 6 hours.

Prerequisites: Computer Science 32, 33, and 35L.

Basic concepts in design and use of programming languages, including abstraction, modularity, control mechanisms, types, declarations, syntax, and semantics. Study of several different language paradigms, including functional, object-oriented, and logic programming. Letter grading.

For why this course is important, please see:

• ACM SIGPLAN Education Board, Why undergraduates should learn the principles of programming languages, 2010-06-24

Related Computer Science Curriculum 2008 (CS2008) bodies of knowledge:

• PL/Overview
• PL/DeclarationsAndTypes
• PL/AbstractionMechanisms
• PL/ObjectOrientedProgramming
• PL/FunctionalProgramming
• PL/TypeSystems
• PL/ProgrammingLanguageSemantics
• PL/ProgrammingLanguageDesign
• OS/Scripting

Related IEEE/ACM Software Engineering 2004 (SE2004) bodies of knowledge:

• CMP.cf.9. Programming language basics
• CMP.cf.13. Semantics of programming languages
• CMP.ct.3. Object-oriented run-time issues (e.g., polymorphism, dynamic binding, etc.)
• CMP.ct.4. Parameterization and generics
• CMP.ct.6. Error handling, exception handling, and fault tolerance
• CMP.tl.4. Application oriented languages (e.g., scripting, visual, domain-specific, markup, macros, etc.)
• FND.mf.8. Grammars