Goal

Lecture: Thursday, 5:30 - 8:20 in Olsen 414..
Office Hours: T 3 - 4, F 11 - 1 in Olsen 215. Office hours may be rearranged or cancelled, with announcment on the course discussion board. Office hours may not be held on days when the university has no classes.

Books

• The main textbook is Programming Languages: An Interpreter-Based Approach, by Norman Ramsey, and Samuel N. Kamin. The book is an unpublished draft and is available in class.

  We will be learning ML from Elements of ML Programming, 2nd edition (ML97), by Jeffrey Ullman. The book is available in the North Campus bookstore.

Class

• The lectures will cover some topics not in the textbook, using tutorial notes available on the worldwide web.
• The class is in the (horrible) 3-hour once per week format so as to accommodate off-camups, working students. Despite having a few short breaks during the 3-hour period, it is difficult for most students to assimilate new material during the second half of the period. Lecture notes are put online after class and should be reviewed.

Prerequisites

Officially: 91.301 (our undergraduate programming languages course) or the equivalent. Discrete math (as a prerequisite to 91.301). 91.502 (automata theory and formal languages) shows as a prerequisite in some places online, but not in others, and was never enforced.

Some prerequisites that are harder to quantify are: An interest in the subject, willingness to ask for help if stuck, and good study habits.

To keep this page from becoming too clutterred, the detailed prerequisites have been moved to another page.

Grading

Homework 30%
Quizzes 40%
Final Exam 30% (OS405, 5:30PM Thursday 19-May-2005)

Letter grades are assigned on a (rather wide) curve, and can not be accurately calculated before the end of the course. However, if your weighted average falls below 55% please see the instructor since the dividing line between C and F grades normally falls somewhere around 55%.

Lateness policy:

There are 10 free late days to use on homework. You are allowed to use up to two free late days on any assignment. If you use more than 2 late days for a single assignment, and the answer key for the homework has not been posted, your homework may be accepted (accruing additional late days) at the instructor's discretion. After 10 free late days have been used, any late homework will automatically receive a grade of 0.

Late days are calculated as follows: the first late day begins 5 minutes after the official start of class, and ends at 23:59:59 of the day after class. The second late day ends at 23:59:59 of the second day after class. Slips of a few minutes are tolerated. Late homework must be submitted electronically.

In case of medical or family emergencies that may affect your ability to perform well on a givern homework assignment, please notify the instructor as soon as possible. If a medical or family emergency makes it impossible for you to attend a quiz or exam, please notify the instructor before the start time of the quiz or exam if at all possible.

Collboration policy:

You must do the homework assignments individually. You may discuss the concepts in any open forum but must not discuss the actual answers to problems. There is an electronic discussion board available for your use. Any questions e-mailed to the course staff may, at the discretion of the course staff, be copied to and answered on the discussion board.

You should be aware of proper academic attribution. If your homework contains unattributed answers that are substantially other persons' work then your course grade may be lowered between one and three letter grades. In cases of cheating on exams, or repeat offenses, the University's maximum penalty may be imposed.

Read the university's policy on academic integrity: http://www.uml.edu/admin/registrar/academicrules/academicdishonestycheatingandplagiarism.htm.