Description

Programming languages are the means by which we instruct a computer to perform tasks for us. We use different programming languages to accomplish different tasks, but what really are the differences between various languages?

In this course we adopt the viewpoint that programming is modeling, so different programming languages offer us different ways to model our applications. We will examine a number of different paradigms for programming, and in each case look at one or more concrete examples of programming languages that support that paradigm. Specifically we will look at languages like Postscript, Haskell, Prolog and EToys. We will also take a brief look at the semantics of programming languages, and we will see how semantic descriptions can be made directly executable to obtain a rapid prototype of a language.

Schedule 2012 (tentative)