6 ms·

Online Course: Programming Languages

44 points by esolyt 14y ago

exim 14y ago
Please change the level of recognition names. Especially the highest one - NINJA - sounds really `Script kiddie`-ish...
- shriramkmurthi 14y ago
  We've already discussed this in the G+ thread.
coldarchon 14y ago
The homepage of racket language is offline. http://racket-lang.org/ http://racket-lang.org/ Can I get it anywhere else in a reliable way?
mchahn 14y ago
Is there any way to see this without signing up for google+? It is trying to make me agree to terms I would never accept.
- mburney 14y ago
  http://www.cs.brown.edu/courses/cs173/2012/OnLine/ http://www.cs.brown.edu/courses/cs173/2012/OnLine/
- armored_mammal 14y ago
  I also agree. Isn't it against the ethos of hacker news to post links that require being logged in?
- Help_is_here 14y ago
  http://pastebin.com/s6bj6DDE http://pastebin.com/s6bj6DDE
- nr0mx 14y ago
  Can you clarify that? I can view the content of the page without being logged in.
- tomku 14y ago
  You can view the course page via the link given in a sibling comment, but be aware that the course is apparently using Google+ for class discussion as well.
- shriramkmurthi 14y ago
  You shouldn't need to log into anything to be able to view the page, but at any rate, as tomku points out, we are going to use G+ for classwork discussion, so it's either now or later.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
ojr 14y ago
people will learn racket? A lisp dialect... Javascript is too cool for school
- rauljara 14y ago
  The course is on how programming languages work. In order for an interpreter/compiler to interpret an programming language it must first parse all of the statements into a parse tree. Lisp is rare among programming languages in that its syntax is its parse-tree, which makes it an incredibly useful teaching tool for how programming languages work.
- shriramkmurthi 14y ago
  The choice of Racket is because it contains several points of interest for what we're trying to teach. For instance, we will discuss advanced control (continuations), contracts, the typed/untyped boundary, etc., all of which are best represented in Racket. So the language itself illustrates some of the concepts we're trying to teach, making them more concrete and easier to experiment with (we don't first have to build the feature before we can play with it). The ability to represent terms as s-expressions is actually a non-reason, given that we will not use s-expressions to represent terms. We will instead represent them as instances of a datatype, as in just about any other language.
- exim 14y ago
  I'd personally prefer a language with static typing and ADT support, like Haskell or any ML-like one. But Racket (PLT Scheme) would be my second choice - and it is quite popular in overseas (USA) PL research circles. Also, I find it one of the most elegant lisp dialects out there.
  - shriramkmurthi 14y ago
    It's not an either-or. Typed Racket is a statically typed language, and students would be welcome to use it.

44 points by esolyt 14y ago

exim 14y ago

Please change the level of recognition names. Especially the highest one - NINJA - sounds really `Script kiddie`-ish...

shriramkmurthi 14y ago
We've already discussed this in the G+ thread.

coldarchon 14y ago

The homepage of racket language is offline. http://racket-lang.org/ http://racket-lang.org/ Can I get it anywhere else in a reliable way?

mchahn 14y ago

Is there any way to see this without signing up for google+? It is trying to make me agree to terms I would never accept.

mburney 14y ago
http://www.cs.brown.edu/courses/cs173/2012/OnLine/ http://www.cs.brown.edu/courses/cs173/2012/OnLine/
armored_mammal 14y ago
I also agree. Isn't it against the ethos of hacker news to post links that require being logged in?
Help_is_here 14y ago
http://pastebin.com/s6bj6DDE http://pastebin.com/s6bj6DDE
nr0mx 14y ago
Can you clarify that? I can view the content of the page without being logged in.
tomku 14y ago
You can view the course page via the link given in a sibling comment, but be aware that the course is apparently using Google+ for class discussion as well.
shriramkmurthi 14y ago
You shouldn't need to log into anything to be able to view the page, but at any rate, as tomku points out, we are going to use G+ for classwork discussion, so it's either now or later.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

ojr 14y ago

people will learn racket? A lisp dialect... Javascript is too cool for school

rauljara 14y ago
The course is on how programming languages work. In order for an interpreter/compiler to interpret an programming language it must first parse all of the statements into a parse tree. Lisp is rare among programming languages in that its syntax is its parse-tree, which makes it an incredibly useful teaching tool for how programming languages work.
shriramkmurthi 14y ago
The choice of Racket is because it contains several points of interest for what we're trying to teach. For instance, we will discuss advanced control (continuations), contracts, the typed/untyped boundary, etc., all of which are best represented in Racket. So the language itself illustrates some of the concepts we're trying to teach, making them more concrete and easier to experiment with (we don't first have to build the feature before we can play with it). The ability to represent terms as s-expressions is actually a non-reason, given that we will not use s-expressions to represent terms. We will instead represent them as instances of a datatype, as in just about any other language.
exim 14y ago
I'd personally prefer a language with static typing and ADT support, like Haskell or any ML-like one. But Racket (PLT Scheme) would be my second choice - and it is quite popular in overseas (USA) PL research circles. Also, I find it one of the most elegant lisp dialects out there.
- shriramkmurthi 14y ago
  It's not an either-or. Typed Racket is a statically typed language, and students would be welcome to use it.