Im about to go insane

I am so FUCKED! I need to pass this shit and my professor is a ridiculous hardass. So far I've been slacking off and passing my previous CS classes by mooching off group project grades and such. This class is all solo work. What the hell should I do? THIS CLASS IS TOO HARD!

Heres the syllabus:

MIT
School of  Computer Science
COP 4020   Programming Languages I 

Syllabus

Professor :  Eurípides Montagne    Tele.: 823-2684        email:eurip@eecs.mit.edu

Lecture meetings:  MW 12:00 p.m. – 1:50 p.m. (HEC 103)

Office hours:    M    from   4:00 p.m.  to   5:30 p.m. (HEC 217)
T     from 12:00 p.m.  to   2:30 p.m. (HEC 217)
         
TA :   Rochelle Elva                email: relva@eecs.mit.edu
Office hours: TBA
Course Objective:
This course is designed to provide a fundamental understanding of the design and implementation issues surrounding programming languages and their running environment.  Students will be exposed different models of computer programming during the course, including: concurrent programming model, declarative computation model and relational model. 

Course outcomes:
1) Outcome 1: A passing student shall have an understanding of run time environments for sequential and concurrent programs.
 
2) Outcome 2: A passing student shall have to understand the implementation of concurrent programming constructs and demonstrate the correct use of synchronization primitives such as semaphores, Monitors and the CSP model.
 
3) Outcome 3: A passing student will have knowledge of lambda calculus and the declarative programming model.
 
4) Outcome 4: A passing student will have an understanding of the semantics of programming languages.

Course Topics:
History of programming languages. Fundamental concepts of programming languages, such as scope, binding, abstraction, encapsulation, typing etc. Run time environment.  Lambda calculus.  Declarative computation model. Concurrent programming model and message passing. Operational semantics, axiomatic semantics, and denotational  semantics. Relational computation model.
 
Prerequisites: COP 3530C   
 

Required textbook:
Concepts, Techniques, and Models of Computer Programming,  P. van Roy and S. Haridi,  MIT
press, 2004, ISBN: 0-262-22069-5.

Other recommended source:

Concepts of Programming Languages, 9th Edition, Robert W. Sebesta, Addison Wesley, 2010, ISBN: 0-13-607347-6



Style of Class Meetings:
Class meetings will not consist of traditional lectures, with the instructor doing most of the talking and the student doing most of the listening. Rather, meetings will consist of discussions on each topic and the instructor will help guide the discussion by asking questions.
    
Grading Policy:
•    (15%) First Midterm exam – closed book, closed notes exam given in class.
•    (15%) Second Midterm exam – closed book, closed notes exam given in class.
•    (15%) Presentation
•    (25%) Final Exam – closed book, closed notes comprehensive exam given during final exam week.
•    (30%) 4-6 programming assignments     
 
Letter grades:  90% - 100% = A ; 80% - 89%  = B; 70% - 79% = C; 50% - 69% = D;
less than 50% = F

Note: Any academic dishonesty (including, but not limited to, Cheating, copying and/or plagiarism) with respect to any exam or assignment in this class will result in a grade of F, following by the usual procedures for dealing with such behavior, as describe in the MIT Golden Rule : a handbook for students.

The Semester Plan: Tentative.
 
1.    Introduction and Preliminaries: 
2.    Run time environment: Stack mechanism (review)
3.    The concurrent programming model
4.    Message passing: CSP
5.    Introduction to Lambda calculus
6.    The declarative computation model
7.    Declarative concurrent model
8.    Relational computation model
9.     Describing the meaning of programs: Semantics
10.     Exception Handling and Event Handling:  (time permitting)
This is a general time frame only and is subject to the needs of the class.  It will be altered without notice, but will generally follow the same progression.  At the end of each class I will tell you what we will be discussing during the next class period.

read SICP

tl;dr

what the fuck do you want? you have to sum up this shit because nobody will read this.

>>2
I dont know, I don't know shit about programming and need to become an expert fast so I dont fail out. I dont even know where to start.

>>3

Read SICP

>>3
Learn a programing language is the answer, as you should have done from the start.
But what exactly will be asked for? Im sure its less hard then it seems.

Professor : Eurípides
Fuck your shit, I'm taking the professor's side just because of that.

I think I had a dream involving SICP. And when my alarm went off (it's a recording on the "lincolnshire poacher" numbers station with a crude organ rendition of the tune first - i cancel it before the numbers start), i somehow thought it was the SICP theme tune (whatever that is)

What a dreadfully boring thread.

The Semester Plan: Tentative.
 
1.    Introduction and Preliminaries:
2.    Run time environment: Stack mechanism (review)
3.    The concurrent programming model
4.    Message passing: CSP
5.    Introduction to Lambda calculus
6.    The declarative computation model
7.    Declarative concurrent model
8.    Relational computation model
9.     Describing the meaning of programs: Semantics
10.     Exception Handling and Event Handling:  (time permitting)

You are fucked.

>>9
Yeah, Lambda calculus is like regular calculus. But even Stephen Hawking has trouble with it.

>>10
?

How far into it are you? It looks OK from here.

>>12
just getting to 6.

>>3

Read SICP

You are fucked never the less :)

Class meetings will not consist of traditional lectures, with the instructor doing most of the talking and the student doing most of the listening. Rather, meetings will consist of discussions on each topic and the instructor will help guide the discussion by asking questions.

I've never attended a CS program, but in my experience in education, this is usually a bad sign. Because seriously, who wants to sit there and listen to what your asshole classmates have to say?

Then again, I went to a school with self-important morons with banal opinions. (I realize that there is the distinct possibility that I'm just as self-important and banal; all the more reason to let the teacher speak.)

That said, some of my favorite classes were taught this way. It just means you have to do your homework, and hope that other people in the class have also done the homework, and aren't idiots and/or bullshitters. Cheers

lets have the qualified expert to the listening and the stupid knownothings do the teaching

anyways op all undergrad courses are mickey mouse no matter what the subject.  just read what you are told to read how hard is that

MIT
I felt I had to post this.
http://a.imageshack.us/img594/3576/1260579869458.jpg

Ha, this sort of reminds me of the time I had a wakeup call in college.  I managed to pull my shit together and kick ass at programming though.

This sort of reminds me of the time I had problems in the university because I was too occupied with drinking all the time and flaunting the fact that I don't understand anything. Oh wait, that never happened.

Doesn't seem like a hard course, but the "Style of Class Meetings" part did seem a bit strange.

?

Read SICP

>>16
You're a moron.

Don't change these.

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