Power
Course Overview
The goal of the course is to delve deeper in to the principles of program design, implementation and understanding. We wish to help students become superb programmers who can design, implement and reason about software that is elegant, efficient, and correct, and whose code can be maintained and reused.
We use a programming language from the ML family of programming languages throughout the course: Objective Caml (OCaml). OCaml is a modern functional programming language with advanced type and module systems. However, the course is not about the OCaml language; rather, OCaml provides a convenient framework in which we can achieve the objectives of the course. Like the object-oriented model of Java, the functional paradigm of OCaml is an important programming model with which all students should be familiar, as it underlies the core of almost any high-level programming language. In addition, the OCaml type and module systems provide frameworks for ensuring code is modular, correct, re-usable, and elegant. In fact, OCaml does support objects, but we will focus more on other aspects of the language. By studying alternatives to object-oriented programming, students will be better equipped to use, implement or even design future programming environments that combine the best features of both worlds. And it turns out that once you understand how to program with functions and modules, many (most?) applications have no need for objects. Indeed, the vast majority of applications you wrote in COS 126 and COS 226 had little need of objects -- they were unnecessarily forced on you by the design of the Java programming language. OCaml is a language that allows you to choose when to use objects and when not to.
Another important reason we use OCaml is that it has a relatively clean and simple evaluation model that makes it easier to reason about the correctness of programs. In our studies, we will reason not only about the functional correctness of code, but also the space, time, and other resources used in a computation.
Finally, it is important to learn the principles of functional programming due to its connection with and use in modern, massively parallel applications in data centers. For example, Google's famous map-reduce engine, which they use to implement page rank and a variety of other applications in their data centers, has its roots in functional programming languages. We will learn more about this kind of application in the course.
Where and When
- Lectures: Monday and Wednesday, 11:00-12:20, Friend 008
- Precepts:
- P01: Thursday, 7:30pm, Friend 007
- P02: Friday, 11:00am, Friend 007
Course Staff
If you cannot make the course staff office hours, send email (or speak to me after class) to set up an appointment.
| Name | Position | Office | Hours | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| David Walker | Prof | dpw@cs | CS 211 | MW 12:20-1 |
| Naga Katta | Teaching Assistant | nkatta@cs | CS 315 | M 2:30-3; Tu 3-3:30 |
Assignments
There will be one assignment every one or two weeks.
Lateness policy. Programming assignments are due at 11:59pm on the date specified, with a 3-hour grace period. Late assignments are assessed a 20% penalty per day or partial day: 0-3 hours late (grace period -- no penalty), 3-24 hours late (20%), 24-48 hours late (40%), and so forth. Your penalties for the first 4 late days during the course are automatically waived. No additional lateness penalties will be waived without the recommendation of a Dean or a letter from McCosh Health Center.
Collaboration policy. Some assignments will be individual assignments. If you cannot come up with an answer after trying an individual assignment for a while then you may discuss the material or the problem with a friend. If you talk about how to solve a problem with someone then acknowledge them at the top of your homework (name and which parts you worked on together). After any discussions with friends, you should write up the assignment on your own. In particular, any programs, proofs, or written explanations should be written up by the homework author themselves. Copying code or proofs from someone else or allowing another individual to copy your code or proofs is a violation of Princeton's code of academic integrity.
Other assignments will be done in pairs. Again, it is ok for multiple pairs to discuss solutions. Each pair should write up solutions themselves.
Tests must be done completely independently.
Evaluation
There will be an in-class mid-term and one or more "quizes."
Grades will be determined by weighting homeworks, tests and exams as follows:
- Assignments: 55% (weights among homeworks are not necessarily distributed evenly -- the longer and more challenging homeworks will be worth correspondingly more)
- Midterm: 25%
- Quizzes: 20%