schedule

These lecture notes are provided as a reference (my own personal lecture-prep). They are not intended as a substitute for attending class. Here is the scratch-file sometimes used in zoom-lecture.

date	topic	reading
week 1
Aug.24	languages steer programmer choices	§§1.0–1.3 (pp.5–16); §§11.0–11.2 (pp.535–538) (skim)
Aug.26	racket-intro.html	§11.3.0 (pp. 539–542)
week 2
Aug.31	The Design Recipe: unit-tests (pizza-area) [code: before, after]
Sep.02	language-vocab-and-concepts/	§1.6.1, and skim the rest of Chpt.1 (§1.4–1.7). Do look at how Figures 1.21 (GCD program in C) and 1.22 (its tokenized version) have counterparts in Fig. 1.25 (its parse tree -- a big diagram, but don't be intimidated).
week 3
Sep.07	Union types [code: before, after]	video: Union types (18m05s) and video: part II (28m24s)
Sep.09	numeric intervals; use helpers for union-of-unions
week 4
Sep.14	struct-intro.html [code: before, after]	first two videos of struct-intro.html (~35min)
Sep.16	Design exercise: a GUI textbox [code: before, after]; Structs within structs (easter-egg textbox)
week 5
Sep.21	union of structs (book-or-dvd) [code: before, after]; language-families.html
Sep.23	Frogger design brainstorming; list: a datatype-definition	§6.6, and §10.1–10.3.1. Suggested/optional: all of §6 and §10.3. Challenge/option: §10.5.
week 6
Sep.28	continue list-processing functions
Sep.30	stepping through `my-max` to motivate local variables; scope, `let`; for fun: an abusive main.java Language families
week 7
Oct.05	tail recursion [code: before, after]	video (24m15s)
Oct.07	A non-list example of recursive data; data-def'n for natnums [code: before, after] (and, a more theoretical take)	recording
week 8
Oct.12	reflect on immutable-data-trade-offs.html
Oct.14	passing functions as arguments: [code: before, after]	11.6 (first page)
week 9
Oct.19	grammars-intro.html; practice: grammar for field-declarations	§2.1: Grammars
Oct.21	exam01
week10
Oct.26	finish grammars, and parse trees
Oct.28	finish grammars, and parse trees
week11
Nov.02	start Trees: skim racket: [code: before, after]; (video (32m23s)); main point: video: defining trees in Java (14m41s) (composite pattern), video: writing `size` and template (17m12s); video: writing `changeName` (14m22s) [code: before, after] Optional: AncTrees in scala (code, video).
Nov.04	Decide on our language's Z0 syntax and internal representation of Exprs/parse-trees;
week12
Nov.09	Look at Z0.rkt: data-def'n for an expression, examples of the data, and tests+code for `eval`, `expr->string`, and recursive-descent `parse!`ing.
Nov.11	Review the Z0 Java implementation. if time: the law-of-racket.rkt Start prolog-basics.html	§3.3, but you can skim §§3.3.4-3.3.5.
week13
Nov.16	prolog-recursion.html	Scott Chpt.11, but skip §11.2.6
Nov.18	prolog-lists.html	§3.6 (“the binding of referencing environments”)
thanksgiving br eak
week14
Nov.30	[code: before, after] we won't discuss issues with prolog-numbers.
Dec.02	Finish looking at: implementing objects-with-let-over-lambda.rkt (pretty much). Wrap-up
finals week
Dec.07 (Tue) 14:45	final exam	[0,∞) `:-)`

Opening notes in .rkt files: Many of the lecture-notes links are .rkt files, not html. You should (a) download the file (say, via right-click or save-as; on Windows you might need to re-name the suffix to .rkt manually), (b) start DrRacket, and then (c) choose File » Open… them. Do not copy-paste into an empty DrRacket window — the language-preference won't be set correctly, and the initial lines may be goofed up. One possible result is the error message read-syntax: `#lang` not enabled.

Helpful Links

some more advanced racket features (some of which you can import into beginning-student):
- contract-examples.rkt-- add (run-time) type-checking to your programs (**Recommended!)
- student-extras.rkt
- let-for-bsl.rkt (not until hw05 though)
- matching-examples.rkt
- quote and backquote
Other resources on learning racket/scheme. For any of those listed resources, please comment on the discussion boards about how helpful you do (or don't) find them, so that I can recommend them more/less highly to others.
Social media presence: &racketlang-social-media-links-ul;
a Racket Style Guide (sections 4 and 5 are pertinent for learners).
John Carmack (of Doom fame): Why John Carmack thinks Racket is aces for beginning programmers; video: using racket for Oculus (1h05m)
For how racket was used by some developers at Naughty Dogs’ The Last of Us and other applications, here's
- a video: talk by Naughty Dog’s lead programmer — more polished; doesn't focus on racket-by-name, but does show several slides of a domain-specific NPC-scripting-language implemented in racket.
- A reddit-thread with links to the above, as well as more industrial-uses of racket.
- a RacketCon Talk on the use of video: racket in The Last of Us but not as polished a talk as others (e.g. it takes fully 2min for the talk to actually get started);
- (the RacketCon page which includes the above presenter's slides, links to another entertainment-industry talk, and other racket (non-entertainment) talks.)

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