[PRL] Ramsey on FP

[Matthias Felleisen]

I think I sent this to the wrong person. Second try. -- Matthias


Begin forwarded message:

> From: Matthias Felleisen <matthias at ccs.neu.edu>
> Date: Sat Aug 23, 2003  9:48:18 AM US/Eastern
> To: prl at ccs.neu.edu
> Subject: Ramsey on FP
>
> Norman Ramsey is teaching a grad course on FP techniques.
> He is inviting people to join him if they are interested. At least
> for some of you, I think this is a wonderful opportunity to explore
> lazy FP and some advanced type topics and to get to know our
> one colleague at Harvard. -- Matthias
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
>> From: Norman Ramsey <nr at eecs.harvard.edu>
>> Date: Fri Aug 22, 2003  3:47:41 PM US/Eastern
>> To: Matthias Felleisen <matthias at ccs.neu.edu>
>> Subject: Fall course
>>
>> Matthias,
>>
>> I'll be doing a seminar in functional programming this fall.
>> If any of your students are interested, I'd be pleased to have them.
>>
>>
>> Norman
>>                   Harvard University graduate course
>>                 CS252r-Advanced Functional Programming
>>                               Fall 2003
>>
>>         Time and Place:  WF 2:30-4:30, Maxwell Dworkin building
>>         Dates:           September 17 to December 12
>>         Email:           cs252r at eecs.harvard.edu
>>         Home page:       http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~nr/cs252r/
>>         Instructor:      Norman Ramsey, Maxwell Dworkin 231
>>         Teaching Fellow: Chung-Chieh (Ken) Shan, Maxwell Dworkin 221
>>
>>    CS 252r will study advanced techniques in functional programming, 
>> with
>>    two ends in mind:
>>      * To learn the best techniques used by functional programmers, so
>>        you can use them in your work.
>>      * To get a feel for some of the research questions at the 
>> frontiers
>>        of functional programming today.
>>
>>    We will emphasize lazy functional languages such as Haskell; eager
>>    languages get adequate coverage in the undergraduate curriculum. We
>>    will also touch on topics in modules systems, which should be 
>> relevant
>>    to both lazy and eager languages.
>>
>>    CS 252r will be run as a seminar; participants will meet twice
>>    weekly to discuss papers. Each meeting will last two hours. We will
>>    also spend some time presenting and discussing code written in
>>    functional languages; we will study other people's code and write
>>    some code ourselves. Because the seminar will be a collaborative
>>    effort, we'll coordinate everything using a WikiWikiWeb, which is
>>    located at http://liz.eecs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/cs252r-wiki.pl. The
>>    bulk of students' grades will be based on their class
>>    participation, including contributions to the Wiki; a final project
>>    may also be required. No examinations will be held.
>>
>>    The class is in the spirit of the four Summer Schools on Advanced
>>    Functional Programming (and we will read some papers from these
>>    Schools). The exact topics to be covered will depend on the 
>> interests
>>    of the participants, but we expect to cover five themes:
>>      * Basics of pure, lazy languages---why does any of this matter?
>>      * How can a pure function do I/O? Monads!
>>      * Type classes, which provide not only a principled approach to
>>        overloading but also a slight flavor of 
>> object-orientation---and
>>        you can write Prolog programs in the type checker!
>>      * Sexy types, including type variables of higher kind, 
>> higher-rank
>>        polymorphism, polymorphic recursion, and generic programming
>>      * Modules, a deep area whose surface we will barely scratch
>>
>>    The class will also include a few short programming exercises, 
>> which
>>    will be done partly in class and partly outside of class. We hope 
>> to
>>    organize these exercises around two problem domains:
>>      * Construction of interpreters, which shows to advantage many of 
>> the
>>        language features we will be studying
>>      * Functional abstractions for sensor networks, which is a 
>> potential
>>        area for new research and may be of special interest to 
>> students
>>        taking Harvard's CS 263 on peer-to-peer and sensor networks.
>>
>>   Prerequisite
>>
>>     Prospective participants must have some experience with functional
>>     languages, preferably statically typed. CS 152 (Programming
>>     Languages) covers functional programming at a suitable
>>     level. Students without 152 or equivalent background must have the
>>     instructor's permission to enroll in the course.
>