04138 - Programming Languages

Academic Year 2014/2015

  • Moduli: Simone Martini (Modulo 1) Roberto Gorrieri (Modulo 2)
  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures (Modulo 1) Traditional lectures (Modulo 2)
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: First cycle degree programme (L) in Computer Science (cod. 8009)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course, the student will know the principal techniques for defining the syntax and the semantics of the most common programming languages; they will also know how to implement the principal constructs.

Course contents

The course is made of two modules. 
 
First module, first semester; instructor:  Roberto Gorrieri
The evolution of programming languages. From assembly to higher level languages. Abstract machines, intepreters and compilers. Syntax (BNF) and semantics (SOS). Regular grammars, regular expressions, and regular automata: equivalences and principal theorems (e.g., pumping lemma); design of lexical analysers. Context free grammars and push-down automata: equivalences and principal theorems (e.g., pumping lemma). Deterministic context free grammars: algorithms for parsing; grammars LL(1), LR(0), SLR, LR(1), LALR.    

Second module, second semester; instructor:  Simone Martini
Environment, scoping rules and their implementation. Stack of the activation records; heap. Memory management: garbage collection. Sequence control, procedures, recursion. Types and type checking. Parameters and parameter passing: by value, by reference, by result, by name. Functional parameters; closures. Exceptions. The object-oriented paradigm: classes and objects, initialization, inheritance and late-binding. Subtyping is not inheritance.  The functional paradigm.

Readings/Bibliography

Maurizio Gabbrielli, Simone Martini Linguaggi di programmazione: principi e paradigmi. Seconda edizione. McGraw-Hill Italia, 2010. ISBN 88-386-6573-8.  
For the second semester, one can use also the English translation of the first edition:
Maurizio Gabbrielli, Simone Martini.  Programming Languages: Principles and Paradigms.  Springer, April 2010. ISBN 978-1-84882-913-8.  Series   Undergraduate Topics in Computer Science, UTiCS .

Teaching methods

Lectures

Assessment methods

Written and oral examinations. The examination covers both modules.

Teaching tools

http://www.cs.unibo.it/~martini/PP/LP-index.html

Links to further information

http://www.cs.unibo.it/~martini/PP/LP-index.html

Office hours

See the website of Simone Martini

See the website of Roberto Gorrieri