Meeting Time:

Mon, Wed 2:50-4:30 Room 166 WVH

News:

Instructor:

Mitchell Wand
326 WVH, 373-2072, Office Hours: TBA
Email: wand@ccs.neu.edu.
WWW: http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/wand

Grader:

TBA

Goals and Themes:

To learn how a variety of programming language features and mechanisms may be understood by specifying them in suitable formal languages. A subsidiary theme will be how such formal specifications can be converted to implementations in a very-high-level language such as Scheme.

Prerequisites:

Status as a PhD student in Computer Science (details). Most students will take G711 in their first year; some may delay it until their second year.

Data Structures or the equivalent, and some previous knowledge of Lisp or Scheme. You should be able to solve problems like these (Exercises 1.15-1.16 of EOPL).

If you have been assigned Lisp or Scheme as a deficiency course, you should already have passed the Scheme Proficiency Exam. If for some reason you have not done so, please see me ASAP.

A summary of what you need to know about Scheme is included as Lecture 0 of the class notes packet.

Some notes on how to prepare yourself for CSG 711 are here.

Requirements:

The final grade is computed as a weighted average of about 10 machine problems (50%), a midterm (25%), and a final exam (25%). I generally do not give plus or minus grades, but I reserve the right to do so.

This course requires a lot of work: budget your time accordingly.

Communications

Bookmark this page as http://www.ccs.neu.edu/course/csg711 .

The mailing list for the class is csg711@lists.ccs.neu.edu. Everyone should subscribe to this mailing list by completing the form at https://lists.ccs.neu.edu/bin/listinfo/csg711. The list consists of the class members, me, and the TA, and is available for you to communicate with the class. Mail to this list is archived. When you write either to me or to the list, it is helpful if you use descriptive subject lines.

We may also be utilizing CCIS web forums in addition to the mailing list. Details will be supplied later.

If you ask me a question privately, I may post my reply to the class mailing list. If I do so, I will usually attempt to anonymize your question, so that you will not be discouraged from asking questions. On the other hand, if you say something clever and interesting, or if you point out an error that the class should be aware of, I will give you credit where credit is due.

During the course of the term, I may post my gradebook publicly so that we can correct any errors. If I do this, I will not post your name. I will post your grades indexed by the last 4 digits of your SSN or NUID (whichever is on the roster the registrar gives me). The list will be sorted numerically, and I will obfuscate the URL so that it will not be cached on Google. If you object to your inclusion in this list, please let me know and I will issue you a private 4-digit ID for this purpose.

Last modified: Thu Aug 30 11:50:11 EDT 2007