CSE 3301 3.00A F
Programming Language Fundamentals
(fall, 2012)
 
course home page

The topic of programming languages is an important and rapidly changing area of computer science. This course introduces students to the basic concepts and terminology used to describe programming languages. Instead of studying particular programming languages, the course focuses on the linguistics of programming languages, that is, on the common, unifying themes that are relevant to programming languages in general. The algorithmic, or procedural, programming languages are particularly emphasized. Examples are drawn from early and contemporary programming languages, including Fortran, Algol 60, PL/I, Algol 68, Pascal, C, C++, Eiffel, Ada, and Java.

This course is not designed to meet the needs of the student who wishes to learn to program in a particular programming language. However, any student who completes this course should be able to learn any new programming language with relative ease.

Topics may include the following.

• Classification of programming languages: language levels, language generations, language paradigms.
   
• Programming language specification: lexical, syntactic, and semantic levels of language definition.
   
• Data, data types, and type systems; simple types, structured types, type composition rules.
   
• Control primitives, control structures, control composition rules.
   
• Subprograms: functions and procedures; argument-parameter binding; overloading.
   
• Global program structure: modules, generic units, tasks, exceptions.
   
• Object-oriented language features: classes, encapsulation, inheritance, polymorphism.
   
• Critical and comparative evaluation of programming languages.

The prerequisites for this course are:

• CSE 2001 3.00: Introduction to the Theory of Computation
   
• General prerequisites for 3000-level courses

Professor	Michael Wharton LAS 2006 E-mail: [m i c h a e l]@cse.yorku.ca
Lecture schedule	Tuesday, 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM Thursday, 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Location	Chemistry Building (CB) 129
Text (required)	Concepts of Programming Languages, Tenth Edition, by Robert W. Sebesta   Please click here for additional information about the textbook.
Reference (required)	The Java Language Specification, Third Edition, by James Gosling, Bill Joy, Guy Steele, and Gilad Bracha   Please click here for additional information about the reference book.
Evaluation	component		weight
	5 exercise sets Test 1 Test 2 Test 3		10 % 30 % 30 % 30 %
Grading system	"The letter-grade system is the fundamental system of assessment of performance in undergraduate programmes at York University."
	grade	value	interpretation
	A+ A B+ B C+ C D+ D E F	9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0	exceptional excellent very good good competent fairly competent passing marginally passing marginally failing failing