Faculty Contact Information:
Email: ssartain@faculty.ed.umuc.edu
YIM: stephen_sartain
MSN: stevesartain@hotmail.com
ICQ: 1314108
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Consultation:
| 1 hour before or 1 hour after class, by appointment | |
Required Texts and Readings:
| Sebesta, Robert W. (2004). Concepts of Programming Languages, (6th ed.). Boston: Pearson. | |
Supplementary Readings:
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The standard for papers in the graduate program is the APA style. All participants in this course and all graduate INSS, MGMT, PUAD, and ECON courses should have a copy of the style guide:
American Psychological Association. (2001). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5th Edition. Washington DC: Author.
All graduate students should be prepared to utilize the UMUC online library at http://www.umuc.edu/library/. The library contains a large number of full text academic journals that are free of charge and immediately available. The library homepage also contains a number of links related to improving students' research and writing skills. | |
Recommended Journals:
| Publications of the various professional societies (such as ACM -- the Association for Computing Machinery, the IEEE Computing Society, and the various management professional societies) are strongly recommended. In addition, there are many trade journals (such as eWEEK) that MIS professionals should become familiar with, many of these being published both weekly and on-line. | |
Course Description:
| 3 semester hours credit. Prerequisites: Undergraduate programming and college algebra, or permission of the Program Director. Recommended prerequisite: INSS 510. Provides an in-depth look at software from a design and implementation perspective. Language semantics and syntax issues are explored. Specification and implementation of data structures are examined. Characteristics of non-procedural, heuristic and object-oriented languages are discussed. Current developments in software engineering methodologies are reviewed as well as research into the improvement of those practices. Software project management concepts and software quality issues are also addressed. Students will be required to complete programming projects. | |
Course Goals:
Upon completion of the course, participants should be conversant in:
1. Major attributes of several programming languages
2. Tradeoffs in programming language design and usage
3. Data types and abstract data types
4. Basic data structures
5. Structured programming
6. How a programming language can support good software engineering
7. Computational complexity and its relationship to software quality
8. The principal programming paradigms: imperative/procedural, object-oriented, functional/applicative, logic, and concurrent programming
9. Current issues in programming languages | |
Course Objectives:
At the conclusion of this course the student will be able to:
1. Describe and apply the fundamental criteria needed to evaluate and compare computer programming languages
2. Demonstrate understanding of the underlying concepts of programming languages such as: syntax, semantics, binding, type checking, scope, data types, expressions, control structures, and subprograms
3. Describe the major programming paradigms; recognize differences between imperative, object-oriented, functional and logic programming languages
4. Compare and contrast the different capabilities of programming languages and evaluate languages for various programming problems
5. Characterize a given program or algorithm in terms of its computational complexity and efficiency
6. Compare and contrast different implementations of standard data structures such as lists, stacks, and queues
7. Describe concepts of object-oriented programming such as encapsulation, inheritance, dynamic binding, and polymorphism
8. Apply understanding of software engineering practices to software quality assurance
9. Apply programming concepts in making software management decisions
10. Research and discuss current issues in programming languages | |
Grading Information:
Grades for this course will be assigned as follows:
A 90%
B 80 – 89%
C 70 – 79%
F Below 70%
Please note that Bowie State University does not use "D" for graduate students. The grade F(a) is used to designate academic failure. F(n) is used to designate failure for non-completion. Grades of Incomplete or Withdrawal are governed by UMUC-Europe policies. For further details, please refer to the UMUC-Europe Graduate Catalog, available in your local Education Center or online at http://www.ed.umuc.edu/general_info/publications/catalogs. | |
Course Requirements:
Graduate school at the masters level focuses on helping students obtain the education needed for success as professionals in their chosen fields. Thus, UMUC-Europe Graduate Programs and Bowie State University share the common goals of promoting excellence in academic scholarship through thoughtful inquiry and the skillful application of knowledge and theory for the betterment of society.
In order to maximize your graduate educational experience in general and this course in particular, you are required to complete the following projects and tests with the appropriate percentage:
10% - Minor Assignments, Exercises, Participation in classroom discussions
30% - Programming Assignments
20% - Mid Term Examination
25% - Final Examination
15% - Research Project | |
Description of Course Requirements:
Description of Course Requirements:
Participate in classroom discussions: You are expected to come to class prepared to engage in all discussions in a professional and informed manner. Usually this requires two to three hours for every hour of a face-to-face class.
Complete two significent programming assignments, study a program written in another language and write a research paper on a programming language. You are required to conduct professional-level research, including appropriately citing works of others and avoiding plagiarism.
Orally/visually present prepared material: You are required to present your results in a professional manner. This typically means an oral presentation accompanied by appropriate visual material.
Complete two written examinations: The examination process in this class will assist you in developing the writing and critical thinking skills necessary for successfully passing the comprehensive exam required of all graduate students. Some examination questions used for this course will either be taken directly from past comprehensive exams or written as though they were to be included on a comprehensive exam.
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Course Schedule:
April 3:
Review of syllabus,
Clarification of goals, objectives and requirements,
Orientation to the subject
Read Chapters 1 and 2: Preliminaries; Evolution of the Major
Programming Languages
Read Chapters 3 and 4: Describing Syntax and Semantics; Lexical and Syntax Analysis
April 4:
Read Chapter 5: Names, Bindings, Type Checking, and Scopes
Read Chapter 6: Data Types
April 24:
Read Chapter 7: Expressions and Assignment Statements
Read Chapter 8: Statement-Level Control Statements
The Study of a Programming Language Assignment is due
April 25:
Review and Exercises
Mid Term Examination
May 8:
Read Chapters 9 and 10: Subprograms; Implementing Subprograms
Read Chapter 11: Abstract Data Types
May 9:
Read Chapter 12: Support for Object-Oriented Programming
Read Chapter 13: Concurrency
Programming Assignment #2 is due
May 22:
Read Chapter 14: Exception Handling
Read Chapters 15 and 16: Functional and Logic Programming Languages
May 23:
Presentation of Projects
Programming Assignment #3 is due
Final Examination
Course Evaluations
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Academic Policies:
Please refer to the UMUC - Europe Graduate Catalog, available online at http://www.ed.umuc.edu/general_info/publications/catalogs/index.html or from your local Education Center, for information on the following:
Academic Integrity
Course Load
Exception to Policy
Grade Appeal Process
Make-up Examinations
Nondiscrimination
Students with Disabilities | |
Faculty Bio:
Steve Sartain spent nine years in the United States Army as an Arabic and French Linguist. He left the Army in September of 2000 to pursue his educational goals and to advance his career.
He currently resides in Alconbury United Kingdom with his wife Melanie and his sons Dagan and Corben. He works as Systems Engineer, Database Architect for Anteon and as a Lecturer for the University of Maryland University College.
He has a Masters of Science in Management Information Systems and currently holds certification as a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) on Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000, a Microsoft Certified Database Administrator, and as a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT).
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