East Carolina University
Department of Computer Science

CSCI 3675
Organization of Programming Language
Standard Syllabus

Catalog entry

P: CSCI 2540 or CSCI 3200. Applied course in programming language constructs. Emphasis on run-time behavior of programs. Provides appropriate background for advanced-level courses involving formal and theoretical aspects of programming languages and compilation process.

Course summary

Programming languages are the notation in which programmers express their creations. It is said that natural language influences how people think. Whether or not that is true, it is certainly the case that programming languages strongly influence how programmers and software developers think.

This course explores different kinds of programming languages: their philosophies, components, structure, advantages and disadvantages. It also covers issues such as type checking, specification of syntax and semantics of languages, foundational issues and how programming languages are implemented.

The student should come away with an appreciation for different forms of programming languages, and should be able to explain when and why they are useful. The student should be able to apply different programming styles to solving problems, regardless of the language used. The student should have sufficient background to understand programming language documentation, and to learn new languages that follow particular styles.

Course topics

• Fundamental concepts of programming languages. Data, data types and data representation. Expressions and statements. Control. Modules and scope.
• Syntax. Using BNF to specify syntax.
• Language implementation issues. Compilers and interpreters. The run-time stack and recursion.
• The functional approach. Declarative programming and programming without side effects. Higher order functions.
• Types and polymorphism. Type checking and type inference.
• Handling failure. Exception handling. Backtracking.
• The logical approach. Variables, data structures and unification. Proofs as computation. Practical issues.
• The object-oriented approach. Objects and classes. Inheritance and polymorphism. Virtual methods and run-time typing.
• Issues in semantics.

Student learning outcomes

• Explain the pros and cons of each type of programming language that was studied.
• Apply different programming styles to solving problems, regardless of the language used.
• Learn a new programming language and write a correct program in that new language by reading the language documentation.

Textbook

Grading

Grading is based on six biweekly quizzes, a comprehensive final examination and approximately seven programming assignments. The quizzes will count a total of 36%, the final exam 26% and the programming assignments 38%.

Grade meanings