| Objectives |
Students taking this course can expect to acquire an
understanding of the following:
- major language design praradigms including: an
understanding of the major classes of high-level
programming static versus dynamic binding, call-by-value,
by reference, by name, and by need, type checking and
type inference, objects and classes, concurrency;
- formal methods of specifying the semantics of
programming languages including: Structural Operational
Semantics, Transitions Semantics, Chemical Abstract
Machine, K;
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| Contacting the Course Staff |
- For email and the newsgroup: please allow about 24 or so hours
for a response, except on weekends (see below).
- The staff do not work on the weekends. If you send something late
Friday or over the weekend then you should not expect a reply before
Monday.
- Never ever EVER call any staff at
home.
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| Submitting Assignments |
- There will be two kinds of assignments in this course:
machine problems (MPs) and hand-written assignments (HWs). As
their names may suggest, the two different kinds of assignments
need to be submitted in two different ways. An HW should be
submitted by being turned in at the beginning of class on the
day the assignment is due.
To submit an MP, you must have an account on the EWS systems. Using an EWS
machine, you will need to run the
handin
program. Before submitting an assignment, you MUST make
sure that your MP compiles with the student grading
script supplied with the assignment. If your MP fails
to compile with the student grading script, your assignment will
get NO CREDIT. There will be no partial credit for assignments
that fail to compile.
Caution: The infrastructure
for handin is not coomplete as of the start of
the semester. If alternate methods of turning in the
asignment become necessary, it wil be discussed in class and
posted here.
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| Extensions |
- Each MP will normally have an automatic 48-hour extension with
a point penalty of 20% on that MP. If we cannot give such an extension
for a particular MP, for example due to scheduling constraints,
we will announce that before the MP is handed out.
During the automatic extension, staff is not obliged to
answer questions for that MP. You are on your own.
Extensions without a point penalty for the first 48 hours and any
extension beyond the 48 hours will only be granted under very
unusual circumstances such as a medical or family emergency.
A signed note from a responsible party will be required.
If you do need such an extension for some legitimate reason,
do your best to let us know as soon as possible, preferably before
the normal MP deadline.
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| Regrade Policy |
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Our goal as the course staff is to grade your work carefully and
accurately. Unfortunately, occaisonally staff may overlook something,
misunderstand an otherwise correct answer, or record a score incorrectly.
This is where the regrade procedure steps in.
In order to have your regrade considered you must provide the following:
- your netid;
- what assignment or exam question was graded incorrectly; and
- why you think your answer deserves more points than what the
grader gave.
You must also submit your regrade request for a particular assignment
within one week of receiving grades for that assignment. It
must be submitted directly to the course instructor, not to the
TAs. Late regrade requests will not be accepted or read.
Good reasons to ask for a regrade:
- You used a notation that was unfamiliar to the grader but is
standard (e.g., in a textbook for one of your other courses).
- The grader recorded a score incorrectly.
- The problem was ambiguous (or just plain wrong), causing you to
interpret it differently than the grader.
- The grader marked the problem wrong incorrectly.
Bad reasons to ask for a regrade:
- Part of your answer "matched" the answer given in the solution.
A partially correct answer is still wrong.
"The difference between an
almost right word and a right word is the difference between a
lightning bug and lightning." -- Mark Twain
- You wrote down two or more answers, only one of which was correct.
Never put more than one answer for a question unless we tell you that
such a thing is legitimate.
- You expended a lot of effort answering the problem. We are
measuring mastery, not effort.
- You wrote something down.
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| Collaboration |
You are allowed to collaborate on the machine problems (MPs) and
the written homework of this
course, in order to figure out how to solve the problem, resolve things
you don't understand, and help each other track down errors or bugs.
Nevertheless, you must each write and test your code
separately and handin your own MP.
If you collaborate with someone, you should indicate so on your
homework. Particularly, you should follow the university rules
concerning avoidance of plagarism. Tests are completely
non-collaborative.
We allow you to collaborate for several reasons:
- all research done indicates that students learn more when they are
allowed to work together;
- our own ability to respond to student questions is increased
because your peers are able to give help.
However, you have to collaborate intelligently in order to get the most
out of it. If you ask a friend to describe the solution completely to
you and then write it down (in substantially different form), you will
get the credit but you'll fail the exam because you never learned the
methods/techniques/concepts.
If you copy a friend's solution directly or substantially, that
will be considered cheating, unless you give clear cite of your
source. If you work as a group, each
writing part and sharing it with the others, that is also
considered cheating, unless your cite all members from whom you
copied. The penalties for being discovered
cheating are described in the next section, below. If you offer
your solution for others to copy, you should protect yourself
from being accused of cheating by reporting this as well. Then,
if some of those to whom you have lent your work fail to cite
you, you will be protected from cheating accusations (unless
they also claim they lent the same problem to you).
If you copy your solutions from friends or other sources, you
must cite your source.
Think of MPs and written assignments as being part of the
practice for the exam. When it comes time to study, we will
likely advise you to redo your MPs and written assignments.
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| Policy on Cheating |
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We will be looking for cheating on both homeworks and exams. The
penalty for being caught cheating a first time -- either sharing your
solution on an exam -- or copying someone else's solution (without
cite, if it is a homework) -- is that you will receive a negative score
for the unit cheated on equal to the value of the unit. A homework
(MP or written assignment) is one unit. A numbered problem on test,
including all its parts, is a unit. The penalty if you are caught
cheating a second time is a grade of F for the class. Moreover, if
you cheat a second time, both cheating episodes will be reported to
the department. You should take all reasonable precautions to prevent
others from cheating and report any suspected cheating.
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| Grading |
|
Our goal is to have grades back to you as soon as possible. In
practice, this will probably take about a week for each
assignment or exam. Whenever your homework is graded, it will
either be returned in class if it is a written assignment, or
you will receive an email with information about your grades if
it is an MP. In addition, the grades will be posted
on compass.illinois.edu.
Do not ask when grades are available. They will
be in your inbox or handed back in class when they are
available. Handwritten assignments will be handed back in class
only once per assignment. After that, they will need to be
picked up from my office.
| Grading Breakdown |
|---|
| Work |
Weight |
Notes |
| Machine Problems and Written Assignments (combined) | 30% |
| Midterm | 30% |
| Final Exam | 40% |
| Project | NA |
Only for 4-unit graduate students |
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| Textbooks |
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There is no required textbook for this course. However, the following textbooks are recommended reading: (see also the resources page)
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