CS 403

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CS 403

• Programming Language Theory
• Class 01 - August 24, 2000

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Paper Work

• Prerequisite sheets
• CS 325, 357, and ECE 383
• Students will be dropped
• CS Department policies
• Syllabus

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Syllabus

• Texts
• Sebesta most of the content theory
• Meyers specific applications to C

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What Languages Do We Have?

• Ada
• C
• pcGrasp (Cygnus compiler)
• MS Visual Studio C
• Bamas C compilers
• The more languages you have experience with, the
  easier this course will be.

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Whats this course about?

• How programming languages really work.
• What goes on under the hood
• What you dont know can hurt you.
• Lots of technical aspects
• This is not an easy course!

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How Can You Succeed in 403?

• Know that it will be hard complex.
• Read assignments ahead of time.
• Keep up with homework, etc.
• Ask questions in class.

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In-Class Work

• Brainstorm How many programming languages do the
  people at your table know?
• A programming language must have
• Assignment statements
• Loops, Selection statements
• Variables
• Subprograms

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Homework Assignment

• List all the languages you have easy access to
  now.
• Engineering labs
• Bama
• Your home PC, if relevant
• Other computers
• Be sure to note the different implementations of
  each language.
• Due Tuesday, August 29th.

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Effective C CD

• Browse quickly
• Homework for Tuesday, 8/29
• Read the Introduction

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Paper Work

• Take up Prereq sheets, CS Dept policy strips

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Why Study Languages?

• Increased capacity to express programming
  concepts
• Improved background for choosing appropriate
  languages
• Increased ability to learn new languages
• Understanding the significance of implementation
• Increased ability to design new languages
• Overall advancement of computing

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Programming Domains

• Scientific applications
• Business applications
• Artificial intelligence
• Systems programming
• Scripting languages
• Special purpose languages

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Language Evaluation Criteria

• Readability
• Writability
• Reliability
• Cost
• Others

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Readability

• The most important criterium
• Factors
• Overall simplicity
• Too many features is bad
• Multiplicity of features is bad
• Orthogonality
• Makes the language easy to learn and read
• Meaning is context independent
• Control statements
• Data type and structures
• Syntax considerations

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Writability

• Factors
• Simplicity and orthogonality
• Support for abstraction
• Expressivity

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Reliability

• Factors
• Type checking
• Exception handling
• Aliasing

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Cost

• Categories
• Programmer training
• Software creation
• Compilation
• Execution
• Compiler cost
• Poor reliability
• Maintenance

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Other Criteria

• Portability
• Generality
• Well-definedness