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	zoom-recording	reading
week 1
Jan.19	languages steer programmer choices	–	§§1.0–1.3 (pp.5–16); §§11.0–11.2 (pp.535–538) (skim)
Jan.21	racket-intro.html	recording	§11.3.0 (pp. 539–542)
week 2
Jan.26	The Design Recipe: unit-tests (pizza-area) [code: before, after]	recording
Jan.28	language-vocab-and-concepts/	recording	§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
Feb.02	Union types [code: before, after]	recording	video: Union types (18m05s) and video: part II (28m24s)
Feb.04	numeric intervals; use helpers for union-of-unions	recording
week 4
Feb.09	struct-intro.html [code: before, after]	recording	first two videos of struct-intro.html (~35min)
Feb.11	Design exercise: a GUI textbox [code: before, after]; Structs within structs (easter-egg textbox)	recording
week 5
Feb.16	union of structs (book-or-dvd) [code: before, after]; language-families.html	recording
Feb.18	Galaga design brainstorming; list: a datatype-definition	recording	§6.6, and §10.1–10.3.1. Suggested/optional: all of §6 and §10.3. Challenge/option: §10.5.
week 6
Feb.23	list-processing functions	recording
Feb.25	finish list-intro.html; start scope, `let`; for fun: an abusive main.java	recording
week 7
Mar.02	reflect on immutable-data-trade-offs.html	recording
Mar.04	stepping through a recursive function; tail recursion [code: before, after]	recording
week 8
Mar.09	practice/finish tail recursion [code: before, after]; A non-list example of recursive data; data-def'n for natnums [code: before, after] (and, a more theoretical take)	recording
Mar.11	passing functions as arguments: [code: before, after]	recording; other videos also linked in provided code	11.6 (first page)
week 9
Mar.16	grammars-intro.html; practice: grammar for field-declarations	recording	§2.1: Grammars
Mar.18	finish grammars, and parse trees	recording
week10
Mar.23	finish grammars, and parse trees	recording
Mar.25	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).	recordingw/ connection-failures and all.
week11
Mar.30	Decide on our language's Y0 syntax and internal representation of Exprs/parse-trees;	recording
Apr.01	Look at Y0.rkt: data-def'n for an expression, examples of the data, and tests+code for `eval`, `expr->string`, and recursive-descent `parse!`ing.	recording; see also: videos at bottom of Y0.html
week12
Apr.06	Reviewing the provided test-harness code; start the law-of-racket.rkt	recording
Apr.08	prolog intro	recording this is actually last semester's recording	§3.3, but you can skim §§3.3.4-3.3.5.
week13
Apr.13	prolog practice; Prolog: recursive relations	recording	Scott Chpt.11, but skip §11.2.6
Apr.15	lists in prolog		§3.6 (“the binding of referencing environments”)
week14
Apr.20	Finish lists in prolog. Possible: sorts.pl, and/or numbers in prolog	recording
Apr.22	Finish looking at: implementing objects-with-let-over-lambda.rkt (pretty much). Wrap-up
finals week
Apr.29 (Thu) 10:15	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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