NOTE: This page is for an old offering of the course. To find the latest course offering, please visit https://comp311.rice.edu/.

 

COMP 311: Functional Programming (Fall 2015)

Instructor

Dr. Eric Allen

TAs
  • Arghya "Ronnie" Chatterjee
  • Yue Wang

Lectures

GRB W212

Lecture Times

2:30PM - 3:45PM TR

Course Emailcomp311@rice.eduOnline DiscussionPiazza -- Rice Comp 311

 

Description

This class provides an introduction to concepts, principles, and approaches of functional programming. Functional programming is a style of programming in which the key means of computation is the application of functions to arguments (which themselves can be functions). This style of programming has a long history in computer science, beginning with the formulation of the Lambda Calculus as a foundation for mathematics. It has become increasingly popular in recent years because it offers important advantages in designing, maintaining, and reasoning about programs in modern contexts such as web services, multicore programming, and distributed computing. Course work consists of a series of programming assignments in the Scala programming language and various extensions.

Grading, Honor Code Policy, Processes and Procedures
 

Grading will be based on your performance on weekly programming assignments. All work in this class is expected to be your own, and you are expected not to post your solutions or share your work with other students, even after you have taken the course. Please read the Comp 311 Honor Code Policy for more details on how you are expected to work on your assignments.

All students will be held to the standards of the Rice Honor Code, a code that you pledged to honor when you matriculated at this institution. If you are unfamiliar with the details of this code and how it is administered, you should consult the Honor System Handbook. This handbook outlines the University's expectations for the integrity of your academic work, the procedures for resolving alleged violations of those expectations, and the rights and responsibilities of students and faculty members throughout the process.

 
Accommodations for Students with Special Needs
 

Students with disabilities are encouraged to contact me during the first two weeks of class regarding special needs. Students with disabilities should also contact Disabled Student Services in the  Ley Student Center  and the  Rice Disability Support Services .


General Information

 

Course Syllabus  
Homework Submission Guide
Office Hours
EricTuesday 4PM - 5PMDH 2062
RonnieFriday 1:30PM - 2:30PMDH 3002
YueThursday4PM - 5PMDH 3113
Textbooks
Online Videos
Development Environment

 

Lecture Schedule (Subject to Change Without Notice)

Week

Day

Date

Topic

Work AssignedWork Due

1

Tues

Aug 25

Overview, Motivation, Core Scala

  
 ThurAug 27The Nature of Doubles, The Design Recipe  

2

Tues

Sep 01

Type Checking, Conditional Functions, Compound Datatypes

  
 ThursSep 03Grading, DrScala, Tests, Binary Methods, OperatorsHwk 1 

3

Tues

Sep 08

Abstract Datatypes, Exceptions

  
 ThurSep 10

Exceptions, Overloading

 Hwk 1

4

Tues

Sep 15

Recursively Defined Datatypes

  

 

Thur

Sep 17

First-Class Functions

Hwk 2 

5

Tues

Sep 22

Functions as Values, Parametric Types, Covariance

  

 

Thurs

Sep 24

Checking Variance, For-Expressions

  

6

Tues

Sep 29

Translating For-Expressions, The Environment Model

  

 

Thur

Oct 01

Lexical vs Dynamic Scoping, Call-by-Name, Traits 1

Hwk 3Hwk 2

7

Tues

Oct 06

Traits 2, Generative Recursion

  

 

Thurs

Oct 08

More Generative Recursion, Accumulators

  

8

Tues

Oct 13

MIDTERM RECESS

  

 

Thur

Oct 15

More Accumulators, Tail Recursion

Hwk 4Hwk 3

9

Tues

Oct 20

Leftist Heaps, Functional Red-Black Trees

  

 

Thur

Oct 22

Red Black-Trees Continued, Stream Processing

  

10

Tues

Oct 27

Guest Lecture: Shams Imam: Coroutines Scala-Project

  

 

Thur

Oct 29

Variable Assignment and Environments

  

11

Tues

Nov 03

Mutable Objects, Equality, Memoization  

  

 

Thur

Nov 05

The State Monad, Mechanical Proof Checking

Hwk 5Hwk 4

12

Tues

Nov 10

Programs as Proofs and the Curry Howard Isomorphism

  

 

Thur

Nov 12

Additional Scala Features, Extractors, Parser Combinators

  

13

Tues

Nov 17

More Parser Combinators, Actors and Concurrency

  

 

Thur

Nov 19

Tactical Theorem Proving

Hwk 6Hwk 5
14TuesNov 24Guest Lecture: Robert "Corky" Cartwright: The Y Combinator  

 

Thur

Nov 26

THANKSGIVING

  

15

Tues

Dec 01

Functional Distributed Computing

  
 ThurDec 03Course Wrap Up Hwk 6
   Homework 6 Survey Results