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INSS 520 SOFTWARE STRUCTURES
COURSE OUTLINE

Class Times: 10/ 21-22, 11/4-5, 11/18-19, 12/9-10                              Location: Rhein Mein
Lecturer:       Dr. Joyce M. Rowe                                                         Office Hours: 1/2 hr after Phone:           370-6762                                                                            class; by appointment
e-mail:           jrowe@faculty.ed.umuc.edu                                            Class Credit: 3 sem. hrs.

TEXTBOOK: Concepts of Programming Languages, 4^th edition, Sebesta, Robert W, Addison-Wesley, 1999, ISBN: 0-201-38596-1.

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

(3 semester hours) Prerequisites: All undergraduate prerequisite courses or permission of the instructor. Recommended prerequisite: INSS 510. Provides an in-depth look at programming languages from a design and implementation perspective. Language semantics and syntax issues are explored. Specification and implementation of data structures are examined. Characteristics of non-procedural, heuristic, and object-oriented languages are discussed. Issues of language selection for various applications are investigated. Students will be required to complete programming projects.

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

To provide a basic understanding of:

	1.	The fundamental nature of programming languages and how they work;
	2.	Tradeoffs in programming language design and usage;
	3.	Virtual computer concepts;
	4.	Structured programming concepts;
	5.	Data and file structures;
	6.	Information hiding and software reusability;
	7.	Major attributes of several programming languages.

GRADING CRITERIA:

	50 pts	Paper and presentation
	150 pts	Homework assignments - 3 programs
	100 pts	Midterm examination
	100 pts	Final examination
	400 pts	Total

COMPUTATION OF FINAL GRADES:

	A	90-100	C	70-79
	B	80-89	F	Below 70

ASSIGNMENTS:

Homework assignments will involve writing and debugging 3 programs. Programs must be written in the language specified. Homework assignments that are submitted past the due date will incur a 20% late penalty. Be certain all programs are fully documented.

The first programming assignment is currently available on the internet and must be written in SNOBOL. You may obtain the first assignment (due at the beginning of the second weekend of the course) at http://faculty.ed.umuc.edu/~jmeinke/ftp_files/inss520de/i520pr1.htm. SNOBOL4, is available at http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/humftp/Programming/Snobol4/ or at http://oak.oakland.edu/pub/simtelnet/msdos/misclang/00_index.txt.

The second programming assignment is located at the address below and will be written in C++. It is found at http://faculty.ed.umuc.edu/~jmeinke/ftp_files/inss520de/i520pr2.htm .

In addition, course participants will be expected to complete a paper and presentation on a particular aspect of programming languages. A list of topics will be circulated for sign-up at the first weekend class. The instructions for papers and presentations will be explained later in the course.

ATTENDANCE POLICY:

Students are expected to participate actively in class discussions. Thus, they will be expected to attend all class sessions. Effective class discussions necessitate full class participation.

COURSE CONDUCT:

The course will be conducted primarily as a lecture class. Participants will be expected to have completed reading those chapters to be discussed before coming to class. The instructor will explain ground rules for the assignments and will walk through algorithms in class. Thus, to effectively accomplish the programming assignments it will be essential that participants are prepared for each class session. Programming assignments will be due on Sat. morning of the weekend it is due.

For the paper and presentation, participants will be expected to choose a current programming language and present both an overview and comparative analysis, both in written form and in class presentation the final weekend of the course. Course participants will need to become familiar with a programming language that they currently may not know.

There will be both a mid-term examination and a final examination in the course. The mid-term will occur on the second weekend, and the final weekend will conclude with the final examination.

TENTATIVE COURSE SCHEDULE:

Day                          Topic to be covered                                                             Text
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

10/21                Elementary Prog. Concepts.                                                        Ch. 1-2
Morning            History of languages

10/21                 Syntax and Semantic
Afternoon          Metalanguage Techniques                                                            Ch. 3
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

10/22                 Binding, Scope, and Type
Morning            Checking Concepts                                                                      Ch. 4

10/22                 Data Types                                                                                  Ch. 5

============================================================

11/4                  Assignment Statement
Morning           options; Program 1                                                                      Ch. 6

11/4                  Exam 1 Chapters 1-8,
Afternoon          Control Structures                                                                       Ch. 7
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

11/5                 Subprograms                                                                               Ch. 8
Morning

11/5                Midterm Exam Chapters 1- 8
Afternoon

===========================================================

11/18              Implementing Subprograms                                                            Ch. 9
Morning          Program 2 Due

11/18             Abstract Data Types                                                                      Ch. 10
Afternoon
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

11/19             Concepts of Object-Oriented
Morning         Programming                                                                              Ch. 11

11/19              Concurrency                                                                              Ch. 12
Afternoon

=========================================================

12/2                Exception Handling; Papers                                                        Ch. 13
Morning         Program 3 Due - JAVA or PERL

12/2                Functional Programming
Afternoon       Concepts                                                                                    Ch. 14
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

12/3                Logic Programming
Morning            Concepts                                                                                Ch. 15

12/3                Final Exam Ch. 1-15
Afternoon

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