CSE 428, Spring 2001: Syllabus

Section 1 Section 2
Instructor: Dale Miller
Email: dale@cse.psu.edu
Phone: 865-9505
Office: 218 Pond
Off. Hours: W,F 11:00-12:00 and by appointment (for scheduling an appointment please call Nancy Clark at 865-9505)
Instructor: Catuscia Palamidessi
Email: firstname@cse.psu.edu
Phone: 863-3599
Office: 325 Pond
Off. Hours: T,R 10:00-11:00 and by appointment
Schedule:
Lectures:T,R 2:30-3:45 in 260 Willard
Midterms: MT 1: Feb 15, 6:30-7:45pm in 121 Sparks
MT 2: Apr 5, 6:30-7:45pm in 121 Sparks
Final: Friday, May 4, 2:30-4:20. Willard 260 (A-M) and Willard 267 (N-Z)
Schedule:
Lectures:T,R 11:15-12:30 in 358 WILLARD
Midterms: MT 1: Feb 15, 6:30-7:45pm in 121 Sparks
MT 2: Apr 5, 6:30-7:45pm in 121 Sparks
Final: Wednesday, May 2, 2:30-4:20. Willard 358 (A-K) and Willard 267 (L-Z)

Teaching assistants:

Guangyu Chen
Email: gchen@cse.psu.edu
Phone: 865-9185
Office: 114 Hammond
Off. Hours: M,W 3:00-4:00

Fan Zhang
Email: fazhang@cse.psu.edu
Phone: 865-9191
Office: 127 Hammond
Off. Hours: M,W 2:00-3:00

Mailing list: Announcements concerning the course will be sent by email, via the mailing list of the course (cg428_class). It is very important that you check your CSE account regularly, or that you put a forward to the account you normally use. The login name of your CSE account should be in one of these lists: Section 1, Section 2. We will send a test message to the above mailing lists on January 9. If you did not receive this message, please send email to lab-support to ensure that your login is correctly inserted in the mailing list.

Course Description: The goal of this course is to provide a foundation for understanding, designing, and implementing programming languages. In this course we will study essential concepts and structures found in modern programming languages. We will not focus on any one particular language, but rather we will examine features found in many different languages. We will also compare different programming paradigms, including imperative, functional, concurrent, and object-oriented. We will study the specification of programming language syntax and semantics, and the verification of program properties.

Quizzes: Quizzes will be held in class every Thursday, except for the first and last weeks of the semester, and for the weeks of the Midterms, for a total of 11 quizzes. These will mostly cover the material presented that week. No makeup quizzes will be offerred. Only 8 quizzes are required. Beyond that, quizzes count as extra credit.

Assignments: There will be approximately 6 assignments. The purpose of these assignments is to gain experience with new programming paradigms and with principles studied in class. Assignments are due at the end of class on the date specified. They will be accepted after that time until the end of the next class with a 20% penalty. All programming assignments should be submitted both on paper in class and electronically to cg428@cse.psu.edu.

Academic Integrity: Every student is expected to submit only their own original work, or where applicable, to cite the origin of the code. Any work submitted by a student which they did not originally develop must explicitly indicate the source of the work. Such sources include the textbook, other reference books, material on the web, and other individuals. The exception is material presented or distributed in class which can be used freely. Failure to follow these guidelines will result in swift and severe actions.

Exams: There will be two midterm examinations, the first on February 15, the second on April 5. Furthermore, there will be a comprehensive final examination, which will be scheduled during the week of finals.

Grading: Final grades will be determined via a combination of the assignments (20%), the quizzes (20%), the midterm examinations (15% each) and the final examination (30%). Usually, in a scale from 0 to 100, the final grades are roughly in the following correspondence with the numerical grades:

The above table is based on the experience of previous semesters and it is meant only to give you an idea. The actual grading will depend also on other factors, like the "natural cuts" on the distribution, the general performance of the class, etc.

Other dates: For late drop date, holidays, etc., see the Academic Calendar.