Undergraduate Course: Functional Programming and Specification (Level 10) (INFR10043)
Course Outline
| School | School of Informatics |
College | College of Science and Engineering |
| Course type | Standard |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) |
Credits | 10 |
| Home subject area | Informatics |
Other subject area | None |
| Course website |
http://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/teaching/courses/fps |
Taught in Gaelic? | No |
| Course description | The course has two aims. The first is to provide an introduction to programming in Standard ML including the use of the facilities it offers for structuring programs into modules. Part of this is a review of material from the Functional Programming component of Inf1A, using Standard ML rather than Haskell, but more advanced material is also included. The second aim is to provide an introduction to formal methods for specification and development of programs, using the Extended ML specification framework as a vehicle. Simple proofs of properties of functions are interwoven with the first part of the course to link it with the second part. |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
1 - Students will be able to design a representation of an informally-described data structure in ML as a datatype, and translate an informal description of an algorithm into an ML function, making appropriate use of higher-order functions and other characteristic features of the functional programming paradigm. [Written Examination]
2 - Students will be able to make effective use of the module facilities in ML to organize programs of about 1000 lines into appropriate units. [Coursework]
3 - Students will be able to use the notation of EML to formulate properties of first-order total ML functions, and to prove such properties using induction and methods of equational reasoning. [Written Examination]
4 - Given some non-functional requirements for a system, students will be able to choose appropriate implementations to meet those characteristics based on their knowledge of implementation techniques for functional programming languages. [Coursework]
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Assessment Information
Written Examination 75
Assessed Assignments 25
Oral Presentations 0
Assessed Coursework
Three written assignments, weighted equally: one on ML programming; one on the ML module system; one on specification and proof. |
Special Arrangements
| None |
Additional Information
| Academic description |
Not entered |
| Syllabus |
Functional programming in Standard ML: The functional paradigm. Polymorphic types, static typing and type inference. Recursion and induction. List processing. Higher-order functions. Eager and lazy evaluation. Imperative features. Signatures, structures, functors. Module hierarchy, sharing and data abstraction.
Specification and formal program development in Extended ML: Specification of ML functions and modules. Proving that a program is correct with respect to a specification of its intended behaviour. Refinement of specifications. Formal development of ML programs from EML specifications by modular decomposition and stepwise refinement.
Relevant QAA Computing Curriculum Sections: Comparative Programming Languages, Programming Fundamentals, Software Engineering |
| Transferable skills |
Not entered |
| Reading list |
* ***L. Paulson. ML for the Working Programmer, second edition. Cambridge University Press, 1996.
* **R. Harper. Programming in Standard ML. Carnegie Mellon University. Soon to be a book. Available on-line.
* ***D. Sannella. Formal program development in Extended ML for the working programmer.
* **S. Gilmore. Programming in Standard ML'97: A tutorial introduction. Edinburgh report ECS-LFCS-97-364, 1997
* *J. Ullman. Elements of ML Programming, second edition. Prentice Hall, 1997. |
| Study Abroad |
Not entered |
| Study Pattern |
Lectures 20
Tutorials 8
Timetabled Laboratories 0
Non-timetabled assessed assignments 25
Private Study/Other 47
Total 100 |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Amos Storkey
Tel: (0131 6)51 1208
Email: A.Storkey@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Tamise Totterdell
Tel: 0131 650 9970
Email: t.totterdell@ed.ac.uk |
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