CS410AP/510AP Advanced Programming

Spring 2006

Credit Hours: 4 for undergraduates (CS410), 3 for graduates (CS510)

Weekly Schedule Lecture Notes Squeak Resources Samla site

Instructors

Professors Tim Sheard & Andrew Black

Course Description

This course exposes students to the depth and breadth of modern programming practice, with the goal of making students better programmers. This course is not a “package tour” of programming languages, but an in-depth programming course that teaches students how to use functional and object-oriented programming techniques effectively.

Many of the same concepts and principles apply to both the object-oriented and the functional paradigms, and are indeed fundamental to the activity of programming. These include parametrization, the use of Closures, Polymorphism, Overloading (viewed as implicit parameterization), Types, Recursion in Data Structures, Inheritance, and Compositionality. Underlying all of these concepts is the recognition that the programmer's chief task is to master complexity, and to use their chosen programming language to communicate to the programmers who come after them how they have done so.

Prerequisites by Topic

Students should have some experience programming in both the functional style, in a language like LISP, ML, or Haskell, and in the Object-oriented style, in a language like C++, Java or Smalltalk.

Course Goals

After completion of the couse, students will be able to:

1. Select approriate names for their functions and methods.
   
2. Decompose methods and functions into components at the same level of abstraction.
   
3. Analyse a problem and determine what problem elementgs to represent as functions or objects
   
4. Deal with complex data objects as whole entities, rather than by twiddling with their elements
   
5. Effectively use parameterization and inheritance to promot reuse
   
6. Use closures to encapsulate computations
   
7. Build recursive data structures and recursive operations over those data strauctures
   
8. Use tools such as type systems, unit tests and random testing to guarantee the integrity of their programs
   
9. Compose more complex programs from simpler parts
   
10. Write the simplest possible program that solves a given problem while explaining to the reader how it solves that problem
    

Textbook

None

Course References

To be announced. Possibly the following

1. Smalltalk by Example.
   
2. The Haskell School of Expression: Learning Functional Programming through Multimedia
   

Assignments

A programming assignment will be given each week. Students will be expected to complete the assignments and discuss and defend their code in class.

Assignments are described on the Samla site for this course, which is also where they should be submitted.