COMS W4115 Programming Languages and Translators Summer 2007 (CVN)

Staff

Overview

The goal of PLT is to teach you both about the structure of computer programming languages and the basics of implementing compilers for such languages.

The course will focus mostly on traditional imperative and object-oriented languages, but will also cover functional and logic programming, concurrency issues, and some aspects of scripting languages. Homework and tests will cover language issues. You will design and implement a language of your own design in a semester-long group project.

While few of you will ever implement a full commercial compiler professionally, the concepts, techniques, and tools you will learn have broad application.

Prerequisites

Java fluency: You will be writing a large Java program and must know the language well.

COMS W3157 Advanced Programming: You will be dividing into teams to build a compiler, so you need to have some idea how to keep this under control. Quick test: you need to know about Makefiles and source code control systems.

COMS W3261 Computability and Models of Computation: You will need an understanding of formal languages and grammar to build the parser and lexical analyzer. Quick test: you must know about regular expressions, context-free grammars, and NFAs.

Schedule

Date	Lecture	Notes	Reading	Due
May 25	Intro. to Languages		Ch. 1, 2
May 30	Language Design
June 1	Language Processors		Ch. 2
June 4	Scripting Languages		Ch. 2
June 6	Al Aho on Awk	notes
June 8	Syntax and Parsing		Ch 3, 4
June 11	"			White Paper
June 13	Getting it right
June 15	ANTLR		Ch. 4
June 18	ASTs		Ch. 4, 5
June 20	Small Examples		App. A	HW1
June 22	Names, Scope, and Bindings		Ch. 6
June 25	Control-flow		Ch. 6
June 27	"			LRM
June 29	Midterm review
July 2	Midterm
July 6	Types		Ch. 6
July 9	"
July 11	Code Generation		Ch. 6, 7, 8
July 13	Functional Programming
July 16	"
July 18	Guest lecture: Microsoft's Jim Miller	Where has my compiler gone?
July 20	Review for final			HW2
July 23	Logic Programming
July 25	Final Exam
August 10	Project reports due

Required Text

Alfred V. Aho, Monica Lam, Ravi Sethi, and Jeffrey D. Ullman. Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools. Addison-Wesley, 2006. Second Edition. The first edition was long the standard text on compilers; the second edition of the ``dragon book'' has now been updated and continues to be one of the more readable books on the topic. Columbia's own Prof. Al Aho is one of the authors.

Optional Texts

Michael L. Scott. Programming Language Pragmatics Morgan Kaufmann, 2006. Second Edition. A broad-minded book about languages in general, but has less on practical details of compiler construction.
Andrew W. Appel. Modern Compiler Implementation in Java. Cambridge University Press, 1998. The opposite of Scott: focuses on compiler construction, not language design issues.
Steven S. Muchnick Advanced Compiler Design and Implementation. Morgan Kaufmann, 1997. A very extensive book on many aspects of compiler design. Starts about halfway through Appel and goes much farther. Recommended for serious compiler hackers only.

The Project

The focus of 4115 is the design and implementation of a little language. You will divide into teams and design the goals, syntax, and semantics of your language, and implement a compiler for your language.

Exception: CVN students will do the project individually.

Final Report Outline

This is a critical part of the project and will be a substantial fraction of the grade.

Include the following sections:

1. Introduction
   • Include your language white paper.
2. Language Tutorial
   • A short explanation telling a novice how to use your language.
3. Language Manual
   • Include your language reference manual.
4. Project Plan
   • Identify process used for planning, specification, development and testing
   • Include a one-page programming style guide used by the team
   • Show your project timeline
   • Identify roles and responsibilities of each team member
   • Describe the software development environment used (tools and languages)
   • Include your project log
5. Architectural Design
   • Give block diagram showing the major components of your translator
   • Describe the interfaces between the components
   • State who implemented each component
6. Test Plan
   • Show two or three representative source language programs along with the target language program generated for each
   • Show the test suites used to test your translator
   • Explain why and how these test cases were chosen
   • What kind of automation was used in testing
   • State who did what
7. Lessons Learned
   • Each team member should explain his or her most important learning
   • Include any advice the team has for future teams
8. Appendix
   • Attach a complete code listing of your translator with each module signed by its author
   • Do not include any ANTLR-generated files, only the .g sources.

Project Resources

	A Two-page Introduction to ANTLR
	An ANTLR implementation of the little language from Appendix A of the second edition of the Dragon Book.
	An ANTLR example illustrating how to display ASTs. Run SimpLexer.g through ANTLR, compile the generated .java files along with Main.java and run "java Main < test.txt" to both print the AST in a human-readable way and display it in a window.
	The ANTLR homepage
	A two-page introduction to the CVS version control system. I strongly suggest you keep your project under some version control system.
	A sample final report by Chris Conway, Cheng-Hong Li, and Megan Pengelly. It includes the white paper, tutorial, language reference manual, project plan, architectural design, and testing plan. It does not include the lessons learned and code listings sections, although it should.
	Source for the very successful MX language project from Spring 2003.
	Other projects from Spring 2003
	Other projects from Fall 2003

White Papers

	The Java white paper from Sun Microsystems
	C# Introduction and Overview

Language Reference Manuals

	Dennis M. Ritchie, C Reference Manual
	Kernighan & Ritchie, The C Programming Language
	The C Language Reference Manual (DEC)
	The C Language Reference Manual (SGI)
	The C Language Reference Manual (Microsoft)
	Stroustrup, The C++ Programming Language
	The Java Language Specification
	The C# Language Specification
	Aho, Kernighan, and Weinberger, The AWK Programming Language

This Term's Projects

RDGL: Random Data Generator Language LRM    Final Report    Navid Azimi-garakani

ASML: Atomic Sound Manipulation Language Whitepaper    LRM    Final Report    Thomas Favorite    Francis Smith

EcoMod: Ecosystem Modeling Language Whitepaper    LRM    Final Report    Viktoryia Kanchakouskaya

XDML: XML Document Manipulation Language Whitepaper    LRM    Final Report    Lyubov Leyzerenok

jLite: Mini-Java Whitepaper    LRM    Final Report    Sudhakar Perumal

FJL: File Journaling Language Whitepaper    Final Report    John Petrella

LPPL: List Processing Procedural Language Whitepaper    Final Report    Brian Smith

Grading

Collaboration

You will collaborate with your own small group on the programming project, but you may not collaborate with others on homeworks. Groups may share ideas about the programming assignments, but not code. Any two groups found submitting similar code will receive zero credit for the whole assignment, and repeat offenses will be referred to the dean. See the Columbia CS department academic policies for more details.