Advanced Programming [AP-24]

Code 301AA - 9 Credits

LECTURER	Andrea Corradini `<andrea.corradini@unipi.it>`
Timetable	Monday 11:00 - 13:00, Room Fib L1 Tuesday 11:00 - 13:00, Room Fib L1 Wednesday 16:00 - 18:00, Room Fib C
Office hours	By appointment sending an email to `<andrea.corradini@unipi.it>`.
Syllabus of the course	Syllabus
Recordings of lessons of AY 2021/22	The course is held in presence, and lessons are not recorded. The recordings of the AY 2021/22 are accessible from here

Page permanently under construction...

Course description

See: https://unipi.coursecatalogue.cineca.it/insegnamenti/2024/52756_691454_67343/2012/52756/10434?coorte=2024&schemaid=9087

Evaluation

The final grade is based on the evaluation of the programming assignments that will be proposed along the course, and on a final oral exam. The programming assignments have to be submitted at the very latest ten working days before the oral exam. During the oral exam the lecturer may ask questions about any topic presented during the course as detailed in the Syllabus of the course.

Students who cannot attend the course for valid reasons (e.g. visa problems) can ask the lecturer (as soon as possible, not later than the end of the course) to bring the 2021/22 academic year program, for which they can find the recordings of the lessons on page https://pages.di.unipi.it/corradini/Didattica/AP-21/.

Structure of the Oral Exam

The Oral Exam consists of three parts:

In the first part of the exam (~15 minutes) the student is invited to present one of the topics of the Syllabus, agreed upon with the lecturer. The presentation has to be oral, without the support of slides.
Typically, a topic is identified by a number (from 1 to 9) and possibly by one or more letters (eg. 2.b [The JVM Instruction Set], or 6.c-d [Type classes and Monads in Haskell]). Introductory topics (like 3.a, 5.a, 9.a) will not be accepted alone.
In the email proposing the dates for the oral exam (see below) the student has to propose at least two topics among those listed in the syllabus, in decreasing order of preference. The lecturer will make the best effort to assign the preferred topic, unless too many students have chosen the same one.
The second part of the oral exam is dedicated to a discussion about the progamming assignments.
In the third part the lecturer can ask questions about any topic listed in the syllabus.

Exam dates

Students can take the oral exam during the exam sessions, fixing a date with the lecturer. Each student should first register for one of the dates published on the portal https://esami.unipi.it/esami2/, which is only possible after filling the evaluation questionnaire. Next the student should send an email to the lecturer with subject "[AP-24] Oral Exam", proposing some dates for the oral exam (not earlier than ten days after the date of the email) and proposing the topics for the first part of the oral exam, as explained above.
Note: The date of the oral exam can be fixed independently of the date published in the portal, even before that date. In particular, upon request, in January 2025 an oral exam can take place also before 13-01-2025.

Programming assignments

First programming assignment
Second programming assignment

Prerequisites

In order to take full advantage of the course and of being able to pass the final exam in a reasonable time, students are required to have an undergraduate level knowledge of at least one object-oriented programming language (like Java, C++, C# or others) and of at least one functional programming language (like Haskell, OCaml, Scheme or others). Students having a weak background on such topics should inform the lecturer at the beginning of the course, and are strongly encouraged to review by themselves the core notions of Object-Oriented and Functional Programming at the beginning of the course, possibly exploiting the following online material:

For Object-Oriented programming:

Very simple interactive tutorial: LearnJavaOnline.org (no need to install Java)
Suggested download:
- Java SE Development Kit (JDK). Suggested version: JDK 17 (LTS)
- Apache NetBeans.
Oracle Java tutorials Getting Started and Learning the Java Language
The following lessons of the second tutorial are suggested to cover prerequisites of the course: 1) Object-Oriented Programming Concepts, 2) Language Basics, 3) Classes and Objects (excluding Nested Classes and Enums), 4) Interface and Inheritance.

For Functional Programming:

Mary Rose Cook, A practical introduction to functional programming
Compact intro to the functional programming paradigms. The examples in Python 2 can be executed on the online interpreter at https://repl.it/languages/python
An excellent tutorial on Haskell: http://learnyouahaskell.com. Suggested reading: Sections "Introduction" and "Starting Out".

Course Schedule

N.	DATE	TOPIC	SLIDES	NOTES
1	Sep. 16, 2024, 11:00-13:00	Presentation of the course	Slides: AP-2024-01-CourseOverview.pdf AP-2024-02-MotivationsIntro.pdf	Students attending the course are asked to fill in this FORM, thanks!
2	Sep. 17, 2024	Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics Programming languages and Abstract Machines Compilation and interpretation schemes	Slides: AP-2024-03-Compilation-Interpretation.pdf	Suggested readings: Chapter 1 of Programming Languages: Principles and Paradigms by Maurizio Gabbrielli and Simone Martini Compiler explorer: http://www.godbolt.org
3	Sep. 18, 2024	The Java Virtual Machine: architecture and runtime data areas.	Slides: AP-2024-04-Intro2JVM.pdf,till page 32.	Suggested readings: Chapter 7: Run-time Enviroments Section 7.1, 7.2 and 7.4.1-2 of "The Dragon Book" JVM Internals, by James D. Bloom http://blog.jamesdbloom.com/JVMInternals.html Chapters 1 and 2 of The Java Virtual Machine Specification, Java SE 17 Edition
4	Sep. 23, 2024	Disassembling class files The Java Virtual Machine: Initialization and Verification. The JVM Instruction Set: properties, format and addressing modes.	Slides: AP-2024-04-Intro2JVM.pdf, all. AP-2024-05-JVM-InstructionSet.pdf, till page 10.	Suggested readings: JVM Internals, by James D. Bloom http://blog.jamesdbloom.com/JVMInternals.html Chapters 1 and 2 of The Java Virtual Machine Specification, Java SE 17 Edition Reference documentation: The Java Language Specification, Java SE 17 Edition
5	Sep. 24, 2024	The JVM Instruction Set, end. Just In Time compilation in the HotSpot JVM	Slides: AP-2024-05-JVM-InstructionSet.pdf, all.	Suggested readings: Section 2.11 and Chapter 3 of The Java Virtual Machine Specification, Java SE 17 Edition Java Code To Byte Code - Part One, by James D. Bloom, http://blog.jamesdbloom.com/JavaCodeToByteCode_PartOne.html How the JIT compiler boosts Java performance in OpenJDK, by Roland Westrelin, https://developers.redhat.com/articles/2021/06/23/how-jit-compiler-boosts-java-performance-openjdk
6	Wednesday Sep. 25, 2024, Room C	Exercises: Inspecting Java bytecode and the JVM You can send your solutions to the lecturer with an email with subject "[AP-24] Solutions to EX 1". Do not send JAR files.	Proposed Exercises: Inspecting the JVM Instructions: exercises-1-2024.pdf Other files: WrongQueue.java	For this lesson please be sure to have installed: Java SE Development Kit (JDK), version >= 8. Suggested version: JDK 21 Apache NetBeans. VisualVM. Please check that the downloaded software works correctly on your computer.
7	Sep. 30, 2024	Software Components: an introduction	Slides: AP-2024-06-SoftwareComponentsIntro.pdf	Suggested readings: Chapter 1 and Chapter 4 of [COMP], Component Software: Beyond Object-Oriented Programming. C. Szyperski, D. Gruntz, S. Murer, Addison-Wesley, 2002.
8	Oct. 1, 2024	Software Components: the Sun approach, JavaBeans	Slides: AP-2024-07.JavaBeans.pdf	Suggested readings: Chapter 14 of [COMP], sections 14.1 and 14.3. The JavaBeans API Specification, sections 1, 2, 6, 7 and 8.
9	Oct. 2, 2024	Reflection in Java Annotations in Java	Slides: AP-2024-08-Reflection.pdf.	Suggested readings: The Java Tutorial on Reflection API, excluding Arrays and Enumerated Types. The Java Tutorial on Annotations.
10	Oct. 7, 2024	Frameworks and Inversion of Control	Slides: AP-2024-09-IOC.pdf	Suggested readings: Inversion of Control, by Martin Flowers Inversion of Control Containers and the Dependency Injection pattern, by Martin Flowers
11	Oct. 8, 2024	On Designing Software Frameworks	Slides: AP-2024-10-DesigningFrameworks.pdf	Suggested readings: Using classic problems to teach Java framework design, by H.C. Cunningham, Yi Liu and C. Zhang. Why do I hate Frameworks? by Joel Spolsky
12	Oct. 9, 2024	Exercises: Java Beans, Reflection and Annotations You can send your solutions to the lecturer with an email with subject "[AP-24] Solutions to EX 2". If you want to send a JAR file, change the suffix of the file for example to RAJ, otherwhise GMAIL will block it.	Instructions: exercises_2.html	For this lesson we suggest to use Apache NetBeans. We will start with a quick look at the Oracle JavaBeans Tutorial
13	Oct. 14, 2024	Polymorphism: A classification Overloading & Coercion Inclusion polymorphism & Overriding Explicit parametric polymorphism: Templates in C++.	Slides: AP-2024-11-Polymorphism.pdf AP-2024-12-Templates.pdf (up to page 15) Compiler Explorer: https://godbolt.org/ (a site for exploring compiled code)	Suggested readings: Overloads and Templates in C++ http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/functions2/ Inclusion polymorphism in C++ http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/polymorphism/
14	Oct. 15, 2024	Universal Parametric Polymorphism: C++ Templates and Java Generics C++ templates Java Generics Bounded type parameters	Slides: AP-2024-12-Templates.pdf (C++ templates) all AP-2024-13-Generics.pdf (Java Generics) up to page 25. Compiler Explorer: https://godbolt.org/ (a site for exploring compiled code)	Suggested readings: Java Generics tutorials: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/generics/index.html http://thegreyblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/java-generics-tutorial-part-i-basics.html Covariance and Contravariance in C# and Scala https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/programming-guide/concepts/covariance-contravariance/ http://blog.kamkor.me/Covariance-And-Contravariance-In-Scala/
15	Oct. 16, 2024	Wildcards in Java Limitations of Generics. The Standard Template Library for C++	Slides: AP-2024-13-Generics.pdf (Java Generics), all. AP-2024-14-STL.pdf (STL).	Suggested readings: The Standard Template Library Tutorial, by Johannes Weidl: Page 4, 12 and parts of Chapter 4 "Learning STL"
16	Oct. 21, 2024	Introduction to Functional Programming Historical origins Main concepts Language families: LISP, ML, Haskell Core concepts on Haskell	Slides: AP-2024-15-FP.pdf (Functional Programming)	Suggested readings: Section 10.1 and 10.2 of Chapter 10 of Programming Language Pragmatics, by Michael Scott, 3rd edition. Link to 4th edition: Programming Language Pragmatics An excellent tutorial on Haskell: http://learnyouahaskell.com: Sections "Introduction" and "Starting Out". Students are invited to install the Glasgow Haskell Compiler and Interpreter (GHCI) downloadable from https://www.haskell.org/
17	Oct. 22, 2024	More on Haskell... List comprehension Algebraic Data Types Higher-order functions and combinators Tail Recursion Optimization Converting recursion into Tail Recursion	Slides: AP-2024-16-Haskell2.pdf	Suggested readings: Recursion in Haskell Higher Order functions in Haskell Optional: Comparing foldr, foldl and foldl'
18	Oct. 23, 2024	Exercises on functional programming with Haskell You can send your solutions to the lecturer with an email with subject "[AP-24] Solutions to EX 3".	Instructions: exercises_3.html Online documentation of Haskell functions: The Prelude Hoogle API Search	Students are invited to install the Glasgow Haskell Compiler and Interpreter (GHCI) downloadable from https://www.haskell.org/downloads/
19	Oct. 28, 2024	Lazy evaluation The lambda-calculus: syntax and beta-reduction Church Booleans, Pairs and Numerals, Arithmetics Fixpoint operator and recursion Evaluation orders in lambda-calculus Call by need in Haskell Other parameter passing mechanisms	Slides: AP-2024-17-Lambda.pdf	Suggested readings: Introduction to Lambda Calculus http://www.inf.fu-berlin.de/lehre/WS03/alpi/lambda.pdf
20	Oct. 29, 2024	Type classes in Haskell Type inference	Slides: AP-2024-18-TypeClasses_inference.pdf, up to page 40.	Suggested readings: Type Classes in Haskell, by John C. Mitchell , Chapter 7 of online, new version of Concepts in Programming Languages
21	Oct. 30, 2023	Type inference Constructor Classes and Monads in Haskell	Slides: AP-2024-18-TypeClasses_inference.pdf, all. AP-2024-19-Monads.pdf, till page 17.	Suggested readings: Type Systems, Type Inference and Polymorphism, by John C. Mitchell , Chapter 6 of online, new version of Concepts in Programming Languages A very short tutorial on Monads http://www.idryman.org/blog/2014/01/23/yet-another-monad-tutorial/
	Nov. 4, 2024	The lesson of Monday, November 4 is canceled because of unavailability of the lecturer
22	Nov. 5, 2024	More on Constructor Classes and Monads in Haskell Input-Output in Hakell: the IO Monad Type (un)safety in Haskell: unsafePerformIO	Slides: AP-2024-19-Monads.pdf, all.	Suggested readings: https://wiki.haskell.org/Monads_as_containers (version on Web Archive) https://wiki.haskell.org/Monads_as_computation (version on Web Archive) Haskell IO Inside https://wiki.haskell.org/IO_inside (version on Web Archive)
23	Nov. 6, 2024	Exercises on Type Classes in Haskell You can send your solutions to the lecturer with an email with subject "[AP-24] Solutions to EX 4".	Instructions: exercises_4.html Online documentation of Haskell functions: The Prelude Hoogle API Search	Students are invited to install the Glasgow Haskell Compiler and Interpreter (GHCI) downloadable from https://www.haskell.org/downloads/
24	Nov. 11, 2024	Lambda expressions in Java 8	Slides: AP-2024-20-JLambdas.pdf	Suggested readings: Lambda Expressions in Java http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/javaOO/lambdaexpressions.html From Lambdas to Bytecode, by Brian Goetz 2011_Goetz_Lambda.pdf
25	Nov. 12, 2024	The Stream API in Java 8	Slides: AP-2024-21-JStreams.pdf.	Suggested readings: Aggregate Operations in Java https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/collections/streams/index.html Optional: Monadic Java, by Mario Fusco
26	Nov 13, 2024	Exercises on Java Stream API You can send your solutions to the lecturer with an email with subject "[AP-24] Solutions to EX 5".	Exercises on Java Stream API: exercises_5.html	Students are invited to bring their laptops. Be sure to have installed: Java SE Development Kit (JDK), version >= 8. Suggested version: JDK 21
27	Nov. 18, 2024	The Java Memory Model	Slides: AP-2024-22-JavaMemoryModel.pdf.	The reading material for the JMM is: [Manson05] Jeremy Manson, William Pugh, and Sarita V. Adve. The Java memory model. In POPL '05: 378-391 [see also here] Additional material: Jaroslav Sevcík, David Aspinall: On Validity of Program Transformations in the Java Memory Model. ECOOP 2008: 27-51 JLS Chapter 17 - Section 17.4 - Memory Model
28	Nov. 19, 2024	The RUST programming language: An introduction (Part 1)	Slides: AP-2024-23-RUST.pdf.	Suggested readings from the Rust book: Foreword, Introduction Chapter 1 - Getting Started Chapter 3 - Common Programming Concepts Chapter 4 - Understanding Ownership
29	Nov. 20, 2024	The RUST programming language: An introduction (Part 2)	Slides: AP-2024-24-RUST.pdf	Suggested readings from the Rust book: Chapter 6 - Enums and Pattern Matching Chapter 10 - Generic Types, Traits and Lifetimes
30	Nov. 25, 2024	The RUST programming language: An introduction (Part 3)	Slides: AP-2024-25-RUST.pdf.	Suggested readings from the Rust book: Chapter 15 - Smart Pointer Section 19.1 - Unsafe Rust
	Nov. 25, 2023	Programming assigments on JavaBeans and Reflection/Annotations in Java.	First programming assignment [Suggested deadline: December 20, 2024, flexible]	General Instructions Exercises on JavaBeans, Reflection and Annotations Archive with auxiliary files
31	Nov. 26, 2024	An introduction to Python	Slides: AP-2024-26-PythonIntro.pdf.	Suggested readings: From the Python Tutorial: Selected topics till Section 4.7 (Defining functions) and from Chapters 5 (Data Structures) and 6 (Modules) PEP 8- Style Guide for Python Code, http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008
32	Nov. 27, 2024	Functional programming in Python	Slides: AP-2024-27-Python-Functions.pdf.	Suggested readings: From the Python Tutorial: Selected topics, including Section 4.8 and 4.9 (More on defining functions) and Section 9.2 (Python Scopes and Namespace). Primer on Python Decorators, https://realpython.com/blog/python/primer-on-python-decorators/
33	Dec. 2, 2024	Python: Object Oriented Programming, Encapsulation, Iterators and Generators.	Slides: AP-2024-28-Python-OOP.pdf, till page 23	Suggested readings: From the Python Tutorial: Chapter 9 (Classes). The Python Method Resolution Order
34	Dec. 3, 2024	Python: Typing and Polymorphism, Garbage Collection and Memory Safety, the GIL, Builtins and Libraries.	Slides: AP-2024-28-Python-OOP.pdf, all.	Suggested readings: Inside the Python GIL, by David Beazley: InsideThePythonGIL.pdf
35	Dec. 4, 2024	Exercises on Python You can send your solutions to the lecturer with an email with subject "[AP-24] Solutions to EX 6".	Exercises Python: exercises_6.html Auxiliary file: anagram.txt	Students are invited to bring their laptops. Be sure to have installed the Python interpreter, downloadable from: https://www.python.org/downloads/ This is the last lesson of the course