CSci 4651 Programming Languages - Resources

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This page contains handouts for the course and links to other helpful materials. The materials will be added as the course progresses.

Reading

• Corrections of typos in the textbook. Make sure to check this out if something in the book doesn't make sense. If you notice a typo that's not on the list, e-mail it to the author.
• The following two articles describe examples of highly successful use of Lisp in industry:
  1. "Beating the averages" by Paul Graham talks about his choice of Lisp as a language for a start-up company Viaweb which eventually evolved into Yahoo!Store, a popular e-commerce software that runs about 20,000 online stores. The article explains why Lisp was chosen and how it helped the startup to "outrun" its competitors.
  2. "Inside Orbitz" by Carl de Marcken details the use of various languages (including Lisp, Java, C++) in an online air fare search software Orbitz (still very much in use and very popular).
  Our discussion will focus on use of different languages for different purposes and Paul Graham's claim about advantages of Lisp for software development. All points of view are welcome!
• Handout on call-by-name and call-by-value lambda-calculus.

General resources

• Timeline of programming languages development, links to more timelines.
• Aspect-oriented programming (a wikipedia article).
• Programming languages related quotes, specifically C++, Perl, Java, Smalltalk :-)
• The report on reasons for 1999 failure of Mars orbiter demonstrates the need for better type systems

Scheme resources

• DrScheme main page: free download and documentation. Set the language to Essentials of Programming Languages (3rd ed.) You might want to add definitions of first, rest, etc. - see the beginning of the first in-class example below.
• PLT Scheme guide.This is the version of Scheme that we are using.
• In-class examples:
  • September 3rd examples.
• A good introduction to Scheme
• MIT Scheme reference guide - a slightly different version of Scheme. Also has references to many Scheme resources.

C++ and other early imperative languages

• An example of call-by-name parameter passing in Algol 60
• In-class example: C++ type system, pointers, arrays
• Some C++ code examples, including:
  • Pointers
  • Arrays
  • Structures
• In-class example: C++ functions and paramter passing
• Bjarne Stroustrup's C++ Style and Technique FAQ - answers to C++ design questions directly from the C++ designer Bjarne Stroustrup (if you are wondering how this name is pronounced - click here, feel free to scroll down the page for other entertaining information)
• C and C++ related quotes
• NEW: A study of object-oriented features of C++

OCaml resources

• A Hundred Lines of Caml - an excellent brief overview of Caml syntax and features.
• A Concise Introduction to Objective Caml - well-organized, a great reference.
• Objective Caml manual
• Download
• OCaml toplevel system lists commands for the interpreter, such as #use to load files and #quit to quit.
• OCaml uses in industry. The article by Yaron Minsky "Caml Trading: Experiences in Functional Programming on Wall Street" available in the April 2007 issue of The Monad.Reader gives an example of use of OCaml in financial software. The article gives a nice detailed list of features (the key one being reliability) of why OCaml has been chosen for the project.

OCaml examples

• First examples
• Examples of OCaml records and variant types
• ML Lab (October 1)
• References and mutable types in in OCaml
• More on ML pattern-matching
• Examples for the type inference algorithm
• Examples of type equivalence in ML
• ML exceptions

Java resources

• Java exceptions tutorial
• Java class Class
• Java tutorial on reflection
• Examples of Java reflection
• Java tutorial on threads and concurrency

Generic types and templates

• C++ function templates
• C++ class templates
• Tutorial on Java generics
• Java Generics - Frequently Asked Questions by Angelika Langer - a very detailed reference.

Ruby

• Ruby tutorial
• The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide to Ruby - a list of Ruby methods and examples
• A reference for Ruby syntax
• NetBeans IDE for Ruby - a free download
• First few Ruby examples
• Enumerable class has all methods that can be applied to enumerable containers (arrays, ranges, hashes, etc)
• Examples of using more enumerable methods
• Examples of Ruby classes
• Writing your own class that implements Enumerable methods. Also more on blocks and some material on Ruby lambdas.