UCLA Computer Science 131, Winter 2012.
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 10:00–11:00 and Thursdays 14:00–15:00.

Assistant: Jerry Weng (Jui-Ting Weng) <jtweng@cs.ucla.edu>. Office hours are via Piazza.

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:

• Freund SN, Grossman D, Bruce K et al. Why undergraduates should learn the principles of programming languages, 2011-02-06

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