CS 152 - Lecture 1

Cay S. Horstmann

Course Objectives

• Objectives:
  • To ensure that students gain an understanding of programming language design and language translation.
  • To achieve competence in a functional programming language.
• What will you learn?
  • How a programming language is compiled or interpreted
  • How to program in paradigms other than OO
• Why should you care?
  • For most of your career, you will program in a language other than Java or C...
  • ...and none of us knows today what that language is

Java is not the End of History

• 1960: Fortran, Algol, Lisp (Dates approximate)
• 1980: C
• 1990: C++
• 1995: Java
• Java is showing its age
  • Not “agile”
  • Weak support for multiprocessing

The “Cambrian Explosion” of Languages

• Check out dzone.com (an aggregator of blogs for software engineers)
• In any given week, lots of programming languages are discussed
  • Ruby, Groovy
  • Python, PHP, Perl
  • C#
  • JavaScript
  • JavaFX, Flex
  • Scala
  • Fortress, X10
• Some are optimized for different tasks (UI, parallel programming, scripting, ...)
• Some aim to be your next general purpose language

Why Scala?

• Multi-paradigm language
• Similar to Java
• We use the functional subset instead of Scheme
• We use the combinator parser library instead of JavaCC/Antlr
• Fewer things to learn => Can get deeper where we want to go

Changing Your Brain

• Biology of learning
• You don't learn by listening alone
• Four activities are necessary
  • Experience
  • Reflect
  • Form hypothesis
  • Test hypothesis
• Correspond to brain areas

Homework

• Make sure your laptop has the Java Development Kit version 1.6 or better properly configured. To test, open a shell window and type javac -version. You should get something like javac 1.6.0_06. If you instead get an error message that the command is not found, first install the JDK and set the PATH to include the jdk/bin directory.
• Make sure you can log into eCampus
• Make sure you can log into the wireless network

Lab

• Format of classes: approx. 20 minutes lecture, 45 minutes lab, 10 minute wrap-up
• No lab today
• Bring your laptop for the next lecture, with JDK 1.6 installed
• You will work with a buddy
• One of you fusses with the code, the other types up answers
• Switch roles each time
• Submit lab work to eCampus.