Semantics: [ Thursdays 11-14, Datalogisk Auditorium (510-103) ]

NEWS Re-Exam: Here's last year's exam (as a service to the students that are going to the re-exam); good luck! Exam: Time and Date: Wednesday, October 18, 2006 (at 09:00 - 13:00) Location: Willemoesgade 15, Trøjborg (Aarhus N). Allowed materials: text books and notes (i.e., no computers). Evaluation criteria: see course objectives (below). Good Luck !!! Curriculum: Lecture slides: [ 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 ] Notes: [ SOS (Chap.1-3, p.19-88) ] [ CCS (Chap.1-3, p.3-83) ] (without chapters: 2.2.3, 3.4, and 3.5.1) [ Note on Induction ] Exercises: [ 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 ] Bonus: Q'n'A sessions (organised by instructors): Monday, October 16, 2006 (at 11:15-12:00) in the exercise room in IT Huset (5520.112) [held by Jacob] Tuesday, October 17, 2006 (at 11:15-12:00) in the exercise room in IT Huset (5520.112) [held by Martin] Wednesday, October 18, 2006 (at 13:15-??:??) [free beer to dSem students in the "Math Canteen" (faculty of science, building 1535)]

COURSE OBJECTIVES (AIM & GOAL) The purpose of the course is for you to learn: to memorize ... to describe formally the meaning of a wide range of programming constructs; to explain fundamental concepts, techniques, and results regarding formal semantics of programming languages; to implement semantic descriptions in familiar programming languages; to analyze the meaning of a wide range of programming constructs; to compare semantic descriptions; to reason about semantic descriptions; to prove consequences of semantic descriptions; and to apply all above skills to concrete programs (to understand and prove properties of programs). to theorize ... Note: The exam is designed precisely to assess your level of profiency with respect to these skills and competences!

EVALUATION The exam is designed to test your depth understanding of semantics (in accordance with the Aims & Goals). As a consequence, it should be clear that I will not make any "type-exercises" solveable by "pattern-matching" (independent of understanding) for the exam. The exam will not necessarily resemble the exercise class exercises; the exercises are optimized for learning, the exam for measuring understanding. However, the exercise class exercises provide key insights that should be highly beneficial for the exam. A few details about the exam: 5 ECTS 4 hours written exam (with all usual materials) internal examiner 13 scale

Contents

CONTENTS Conceptual analysis and operational semantics of constructs from familiar programming languages; Relevant techniques for proving properties of operational semantics, including structural induction; Validation techniques, including implementation of operational semantics in a familiar programming language; The main differences between operational semantics and other kinds of formal semantics.

Claus Brabrand (July 11, 2007)