Language is an instrument of human reason,
not merely a medium for the expression of thought.
G. Boole, An Investigation of the Laws of Thought, 1854

Objectives

The evolution of software systems towards Web Computing involves a variety of complex techniques and tools, from object-oriented programming, to component-based programming, to Web Service programming. A deep understanding of the structure and capabilities of these techniques is required in order to fully exploit their potential.

The objectives of this course are:

1. to provide the students with a deep understanding of how high level programming concepts and metaphors map into executable systems and which are their costs and limitations
2. to acquaint the students with modern principles, techniques, and best practices of advanced software construction
3. to introduce the students to techniques of programming at higher abstraction levels, in particular generative programming, component programming and web computing
4. to present state-of-the-art frameworks incorporating these techniques.

This course will provide a deep understanding of modern software technologies, so that the students will be able to evaluate the effects of each design choice through all levels of a software architecture, in terms of performance, reliability, adaptability and integrability into larger systems.

The course is a required course for the Laurea Magistrale in Informatica as well of the Laurea Magistrale in Informatica e Networking, and contribuites to prepare professionals for the role of software architect.

Schedule

Day	Time	Room
Wednesday	9-11	B
Thursday	2-4 pm	E
Friday	9-11	B

Syllabus

Programming Language Foundations

1. Syntax, Parsing, Abstract Syntax Tree, Parser Generators
2. Names, Scope, Binding
3. Parameter Passing
4. Static and Dynamic Allocaltion: Stack, Heap
5. Types, Inheritance, Polymorphism, Virtual Functions, Overloading
6. Delegates, Closures
7. Exception Handling

Run-Time Systems

1. Virtual Execution Environment
   • Memory Management
   • Thread Management
   • Exception Handling
   • Security
   • Debugging Support
   • AOT and JIT Compilation
   • Dynamic Link/Load
   • Reflection
2. Examples
   • JVM
   • CLR
3. Verification
4. Language Interoperability

Generic Programming

1. C++ templates
2. Java Generics
3. C# Generics
4. Bounded Polymorphism

Class Libraries and Frameworks

1. Object-Oriented Programming and Frameworks
   • Use of polumorphism in framework design
   • Extensibility, adaptability, performance of OOP
   • Inversion of control
2. .NET Framework Class Library
3. Java Class Library

Generative Programming

1. MetaProgramming
2. Reflection
3. Template C++
4. Aspect Oriented Programming
5. Runtime code generation: LINQ
6. Generators
7. Program optimization and transformation
8. Partial evaluation

Interoperability

1. Process level: interprocess communication
2. Language level: CORBA/IDL
3. Object level: DCOM

Component Based Programming

1. COM
2. JavaBeans
3. .NET (Assembly, Reflection, Interfaces, Attributes)
4. ODGi

Web Services

1. XML, XML-Schema
2. SOAP, RPC, Rest
3. WSDL
4. UDDI

Web Frameworks and Applications

1. Asp.Net
2. ADO.Net
3. J2EE
4. Java Server Faces
5. AJAX: XHR, YUI, GWT
6. Mashup and Service Oriented Architecture

Scripting

1. Perl, Python, JavaScript, PHP, Ruby, Guile

Lecture Notes

Previous Editions

Text Books

Programming Language Pragmatics, third ed., Michael L. Scott, Morgan-Kaufmann, 2009. Google Books preview.

Generative Programming: Methods, Tools, and Applications, Krzysztof Czarnecki, Ulrich Eisenecker, Addison-Wesley, 2000.

Object Thinking , David West, Microsoft Press, 2004.

Shared Source CLI Essentials, David Stutz, Geoff Shilling, Ted Neward, O’Reilly, 2003.

Reference Material

Refactoring

Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code, M. Fowler, K. Beck, J. Brant, W. Opdyke and Don Roberts, Addison-Wesley, 1999

Rotor

Rotor Sources

Java2C#

Introduction to C# for Java programmers

J2EE

J2EE Tutorial

J2EE

C++ Templates and Generic Programming, E. Zueff, ETH

Assessment

• Mid Term Paper: early November, one week homework
• Term Paper: at the end of the course, one month homework

Sample Term Paper Subjects

• Code generator for ASP and regular expression matcher
• Implementing a DSL for dealing with containers of persistent objects
• Protocol SOAP and server SOAP
• Code generator for searching objects in an SQL database
• Intepreter for XPath and XSLT
• Language for generating protocols
• AJAX Framework

Courses Elsewhere

• G. Novak. Automatic Programming, University of Texas.
• S. Gilmore. Enterprise Computing, University of Edinburgh.