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schedule

These lecture notes are provided as a reference (my own personal lecture-prep). They are not intended as a substitute for attending class.

date	topic	reading
week 1
Jan.21	languages steer programmer choices	§§1.0–1.3 (pp.5–16); §§11.0–11.2 (pp.535–538) (skim)
Jan.23	racket-intro.html; [code: before, after]	§11.3.0 (pp. 539–542)
week 2
Jan.28	The Design Recipe: unit-tests (pizza-area)
Jan.30	Another ex. of design recipe; refactoring (`monogram`) [code: before, after]
week 3
Feb.04	Union types [code: before, after]; use helpers for unions-of-unions
Feb.06
week 4
Feb.11	struct-intro.html [code: before, after]
Feb.13	video: union of structs (book-or-dvd) [code: before, after]; video: struct of structs (collectors editions) [code: before, after]
week 5
Feb.18	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).
Feb.20	list: a datatype-definition; [code: before, after]	§6.6, and §10.1–10.3.1. Suggested/optional: all of §6 and §10.3. Challenge/option: §10.5.
week 6
Feb.25	using let to avoid repeated-computation [code: before, after]; scope `let`, `let*`
Feb.27	another union-of-struct recipe example: Ancestor Trees [code: before, after]
week 7
Mar.04	video: defining trees in Java (14m41s) (composite pattern), [code: before, after]
Mar.06	data-def'n for natnums [code: before, after] (a more theoretical take); a nonsense example;; AncTree.java: video: writing `size`, and template (17m12s); video: writing `changeName` (14m22s) [code: before, after]
spring 🌷 br eak
week 8
Mar.18	Language families video (32m23s), and reflect on immutable-data-trade-offs.html; lists.html solution; language-vocab-and-concepts/
Mar.20	exam01
week 9
Mar.25	passing functions as arguments: [code: before, after] and lambda-examples.rkt	11.6 (first page)
Mar.27	tail recursion [code: before, after] (a practice problem: tail-recursion-sum-2^i.html)	video (24m15s)recording
week10
Apr.01	grammars-intro.html; practice: grammar for field-declarations	§2.1: Grammars
Apr.03	finish grammars, and parse trees
week11
Apr.08	Decide on our language's H0 syntax and internal representation of Exprs/parse-trees;
Apr.10	Look at H0.rkt: data-def'n for an expression, examples of the data, and tests+code for `eval`, `expr->string`, and recursive-descent `parse!`ing.
week12
Apr.15	H0 test harness, both in racket video (14m14s)and (slightly more involved and less flexible) in Java video (8m08s) Note: These test-harness videos are from a different semester's language, so the exact examples will be different from H0, but otherwise it's identical.	§3.3, but you can skim §§3.3.4-3.3.5.
Apr.17	immutable-data-trade-offs.html
week13
Apr.22	Review H2-soln; Prolog intro: run file heroes.pl [code: before, after] at swish.swi-prolog.org/	Scott Chpt.11, but skip §11.2.6
Apr.24	prolog-recursion.html; prolog-lists.html	§3.6 (“the binding of referencing environments”)
week14
Apr.29	sorting in prolog [code: before, after]; why-prolog.txt We won't discuss issues with prolog-numbers.
May.01	objects-with-let-over-lambda.rkt (pretty much); course-summary.html
finals week
May.06 (Tue) 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).
some ruby & javascript unexpected behaviors (5min) (by @garybernhardt)
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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