In this seminar course, we will study themes in the history of programming languages. The primary goal is to understand (some of) the discipline as it exits today and how some of its major themes evolved. Initially, the seminar will focus on the theme of formal description of programming languages, including syntax and various flavors of semantics. The choice of other themes will depend on students' preferences.

The secondary goal is to develop basic skills for understanding and describing research themes. Every student will study a theme via a series of papers, prepare an annotated bibliography, present a summary and an evaluation of the papers. These skills will be helpful for all those students who will continue to conduct research for their dissertation and/or for their career.

The first meeting will take place on Tuesday, Jan 12, at 11:45 in WVH 166. I will describe the course organization and initiate the search for themes.

For now, I have reserved WVH 166 for the rest of the semester for the regular class time. In case the enrollment grows beyond a certain size, we will use the assigned classroom (International Village 022).