Scripting Languages
CS 5142, Fall 2013

General information / Course Description / Schedule / Grading / See also

General Information

Lecture:	MWF 12:20-1:10pm, Olin 245
Instructor:	Robert Soulé, soule@cs.cornell.edu, 4154 Upson Hall
Instructor office hours:	Mondays 1:10pm - 2:10pm (after class).
Assistants:	Ozan Irsoy (oirsoy@cs.cornell.edu), Theodoros Gkountouvas (tg294@cornell.edu)
Piazza:	https://piazza.com/cornell/fall2013/cs5142/home
CMS:	http://cms.csuglab.cornell.edu/

Perl, PHP, JavaScript, VisualBasic -- they are often-requested skills for employment, but most of us do not have the time to find out what they are all about. In this course, you learn how to use scripting languages for rapid prototyping, web programming, data processing, and application extension. Besides covering traditional programming languages concepts as they apply to scripting (e.g., dynamic typing and scoping), this course looks at new concepts rarely found in traditional languages (e.g., string interpolation, hashes, and polylingual code). Through a series of small projects, you use different languages to achieve programming tasks that highlight the strengths and weaknesses of scripting. As a side effect, you practice teaching yourself new languages.

Syllabus

Fundamentals: interpreters, dynamic typing, dynamic scoping (Perl, VBA).
Data processing: regular expressions, string interpolation, hash tables (Perl), XML and DOM (JavaScript).
Web programming: server (PHP), client (JavaScript), databases, AJAX, security.
Application extension: Automating tasks in large systems (VBA).
Other languages: Brief overview of Python, Bash (shell), Ruby.

Recommended Books

There is no official textbook for this course. However, here are some useful resources:

Programming Language Pragmatics, 3rd edition.
Michael Scott. ISBN 0123745144, Morgan Kaufmann, 2009.
Programming Perl, 4th edition.
Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, and Jon Orwant. ISBN 0-596-00492-3, O'Reilly, 2012.
Programming PHP, 3rd edition.
Rasmus Lerdorf, Kevin Tatroe, and Peter MacIntyre. ISBN 1449392776, O'Reilly, 2013.
JavaScript: The Definitive Guide, 6th edition.
David Flanagan. ISBN 0-596-80552-7, O'Reilly, 2011.
Mastering VBA for Office 2010, 2nd edition.
Richard Mansfield. ISBN 0470634006, Sybex, 2010.

Prerequisites

The course is designed to be relatively self-contained. You need to be familiar with some existing C-like language (one of C, C++, Java, or C#, to name a few). But you do not need prior knowledge of either web design or scripting languages for this course. As long as you have a basic understanding of computer science, you should be able to pick up the new languages in the class.

Grading

Grades will be calculated to 25% from homeworks, 11% from prelim1, 19% from prelim2, and 45% from the final exam.

Homeworks are assigned each week on Thursday, and each homework is due one week later on Friday at 6pm. This is a strict deadline. Homeworks involve both conceptual questions and hands-on programming.
Prelims are 35 minutes long. The prelims focus on conceptual questions. Prelims are shorter than the final exam, but similar in style.

Academic integrity

Please carefully read the the university and department's academic integrity policies:

I encourage you to collaborate on homework assignments. But you must write up and turn in your own answers. Also, you must clearly indicate who you collaborated with.
During prelims and the final exam, you must not use any reference material, and you must not communicate with your fellow students.
If I detect any incidents of cheating, I will report them immediately to the department.

Assignment deadlines

The policy for late assignments is as follows:

If you submit at least 1 minute late, but at most 3 hours late, you receive 50% of the points for that homework.
Otherwise, late homeworks are only acceptable if the lateness is caused by circumstances beyond your control, such as illness or a missed flight.
In this case, you only get the points for the homework if you provide official documentation, such as a doctor's certificate, for the reason why your homework is late.

Tentative Schedule

Date Lecture topic Homework Quiz
08/28/2013 Introduction
08/30/2013 End user programming (VBA) hw1
09/02/2013 No class. Happy Labor Day.
09/04/2013 Objects, properties, call-backs I
09/06/2013 Objects, properties, call-backs II hw2
09/09/2013 Textual data processing (Perl) I
09/11/2013 Textual data processing (Perl) II
09/13/2013 Guest Lecture: Dr. Thomas Ball,TouchDevelop hw3
09/16/2013 Regular expressions
09/18/2013 Context, objects, scripting as glue I
09/20/2013 Context, objects, scripting as glue II hw4
09/23/2013 Bash
09/25/2013 Prelim Review
09/27/2013 Prelim 1 (in class)
09/30/2013 Server-side scripting (PHP) I
10/02/2013 Server-side scripting (PHP) II
10/04/2013 Server-side scripting (PHP) III hw5
10/07/2013 Client-side scripting (JavaScript) I
10/09/2013 Client-side scripting (JavaScript) II
10/11/2013 JQuery hw6
10/14/2013 No Class (Fall Break)
10/16/2013 Web applications and databases I
10/18/2013 Web applications and databases II hw7
10/21/2013 Server-side Javascript I
10/23/2013 Server-side Javascript II
10/25/2013 Ruby I hw8
10/28/2013 Ruby II
10/30/2013 Prelim Review
11/01/2013 Prelim 2 (in class)
11/04/2013 Python
11/06/2013 CFG, Parsing parser.py
11/08/2013 Python II hw9
11/11/2013 TouchDevelop Tutorial, Basic Abstractions
11/13/2013 TouchDevelop Boxes and Pages
11/15/2013 TouchDevelop Build, TypeScript hw10
11/18/2013 Security
11/20/2013 Security (Guest Lecture: Owen Arden)
11/22/2013 Security (Guest Lecture: Prof. Andrew Myers) hw11
11/25/2013 Debugging
11/27/2013 No class (Thanksgiving)
11/29/2013 No class (Thanksgiving) hw12 (for fun)
12/02/2013 OCaml
12/04/2013 Final Review
12/06/2013 Final Review
12/17/2013 Final Exam at 7pm, Olin Hall 165

Date	Lecture topic	Homework
08/28/2013	Introduction
08/30/2013	End user programming (VBA)	hw1
09/02/2013	No class. Happy Labor Day.
09/04/2013	Objects, properties, call-backs I
09/06/2013	Objects, properties, call-backs II	hw2
09/09/2013	Textual data processing (Perl) I
09/11/2013	Textual data processing (Perl) II
09/13/2013	Guest Lecture: Dr. Thomas Ball,TouchDevelop	hw3
09/16/2013	Regular expressions
09/18/2013	Context, objects, scripting as glue I
09/20/2013	Context, objects, scripting as glue II	hw4
09/23/2013	Bash
09/25/2013	Prelim Review
09/27/2013	Prelim 1 (in class)
09/30/2013	Server-side scripting (PHP) I
10/02/2013	Server-side scripting (PHP) II
10/04/2013	Server-side scripting (PHP) III	hw5
10/07/2013	Client-side scripting (JavaScript) I
10/09/2013	Client-side scripting (JavaScript) II
10/11/2013	JQuery	hw6
10/14/2013	No Class (Fall Break)
10/16/2013	Web applications and databases I
10/18/2013	Web applications and databases II	hw7
10/21/2013	Server-side Javascript I
10/23/2013	Server-side Javascript II
10/25/2013	Ruby I	hw8
10/28/2013	Ruby II
10/30/2013	Prelim Review
11/01/2013	Prelim 2 (in class)
11/04/2013	Python
11/06/2013	CFG, Parsing	parser.py
11/08/2013	Python II	hw9
11/11/2013	TouchDevelop Tutorial, Basic Abstractions
11/13/2013	TouchDevelop Boxes and Pages
11/15/2013	TouchDevelop Build, TypeScript	hw10
11/18/2013	Security
11/20/2013	Security (Guest Lecture: Owen Arden)
11/22/2013	Security (Guest Lecture: Prof. Andrew Myers)	hw11
11/25/2013	Debugging
11/27/2013	No class (Thanksgiving)
11/29/2013	No class (Thanksgiving)	hw12 (for fun)
12/02/2013	OCaml
12/04/2013	Final Review
12/06/2013	Final Review
12/17/2013	Final Exam at 7pm, Olin Hall 165

Scripting Languages CS 5142, Fall 2013