CSCI 1260

Compilers and Program Analysis

Introduction

Welcome to CSCI 1260 at Brown University!

Have you ever wondered why C programs seem to run faster than Python programs? Have you ever been confused by an error message and wondered why Java couldn't understand your program? In CSCI 1260, we'll learn how compilers read in code in one language and produce code in another; in particular, we'll learn how to translate high-level languages to code that your computer's processor can understand. We will get hands-on practice developing compilers for a series of increasingly complex languages. Along the way, we'll learn some general best practices for developing and testing complex software systems.

Lectures take place every Monday and Wednesday from 9:30 - 10:50 AM.

From Sep 7 through Oct 12 we will meet in CIT 241.
From Oct 17 onward we will meet in CIT 165, with one exception:
On Nov 9 we will meet in CIT 241.

All course lectures will be recorded and livestreamed on Panopto.

Assignments

Homework	Out	In
0. OCaml Warmup	Sep. 7	Sep. 14
1. S-expressions	Sep. 14	Sep. 21
2. Characters	Sep. 21	Sep. 28
3. DMAOLC (div, mul, and, or, let, case)	Sep. 28	Oct. 12
4. Error handling and the heap	Oct. 12	Oct. 19
5. Fun with files	Oct. 26	~~Nov. 2~~ Nov 3
6. Apply, variadic functions	Nov. 2	Nov. 16
7. MiniML	Nov. 16	Nov. 23
8. Optimizations	Nov. 23	Dec. 12 (benchmarks Dec 5)

Lab	Handout	Github Classroom
Compiler Infrastructure	Handout	Github Classroom
Debugging Assembly	Handout	Github Classroom
Parser Generators	Handout	Github Classroom

Drill	Out	In
Drill 1 (Solutions)	Sep. 7	Sep. 11
Drill 2 (Solutions)	Sep. 14	Sep. 18
Drill 3 (Solutions)	Sep. 21	Sep. 25
Drill 4 (Solutions)	Oct. 5	Oct. 9
Drill 5 (Solutions)	Oct. 19	Oct. 23
Drill 6 (Solutions)	Oct. 31	Nov. 6
Drill 7 (Solutions)	Nov. 9	Nov. 13 15
Drill 8 (Solutions)	Nov. 16	Nov. 20
Drill 9 (Solutions)	Nov. 30	Dec 4

Exam	Date
Midterm	Oct. 26
Final	Dec. 13

Lectures

Lectures take place every Monday and Wednesday from 9:30 - 10:50 AM in CIT 241. The lecture notes will be updated after every class. Streams and recordings will show up in our Panopto folder and will (eventually) be linked here.

Lecture topics for future dates are very tentative.

Date	Topic	Recording
September 7	What is a compiler?	Recording
September 12	OCaml intro; S-Expressions	Recording
September 14	Unary operations	Recording
September 19	Booleans	Recording
September 21	More Booleans, conditionals	Recording
September 26	Binary operations	Recording
September 28	Naming expressions with let	Recording
October 3	Pairs and the heap	Recording
October 5	Debugging assembly and assorted topics	Recording
October 10	NO CLASS
October 12	Handling errors	Recording
October 17	Interacting with the environment	Recording
October 19	Output and functions	Recording
October 24	More functions	Recording
October 26	MIDTERM (In Class)
October 31	Tail calls	Recording
November 2	Guest lecture by Yaron Minsky	Recording
November 7	Parsing	Recording
November 9	More parsing; function pointers	Recording
November 14	First-class and anonymous functions	Recording
November 16	Closures	Recording
November 21	Optimization intro - constant folding	Recording
November 23	NO CLASS
November 28	Inlining and CSE	Recording
November 30	IRs and register allocation	Recording
December 5	Trust and verification; wrap-up	Recording
December 7	Guest Lecture by Desmond Cheong
December 13	FINAL (2pm-4pm)

Calendar

Zoom links are included in the Google Calendar event, as well as in the SignMeUp Queue.

Resources

Quick Links

Reference Labs

Lab 1: Introduction to OCaml

Contact

Staff

Robert Lewis 🦦

Professor | rlewis13

Call me Rob! I'm half computer scientist, half mathematician, and fully excited to learn about compilers with you all this semester. Pronouns: he/him/his

Ethan Mullen 🦖

UTA | emullen2

I’m a senior studying Computer Science and Theatre Arts. I’m from Atlanta, Georgia, and I love musical theatre. Pronouns: he/him/his

Raj Paul 🐨

UTA | rpaul5

Hi, I'm a senior from St. Louis, Missouri studying English and Computer Science. I love movies, breathing exercises, and all things food. Pronouns: he/him/his

Yanyan Ren 🍦

GTA | yren17

Hi there! My name is Yanyan and I’m a PhD student doing research in computing education. I’m from Nanjing, China. I love hanging out with my cat Oreo. Pronouns: she/her/hers

Nick Young 🐝

HTA | nyoung10

Hi! I'm from Vancouver and I enjoy climbing, mixology, and keyboards! Pronouns: he/him/his

Tyler Zickmund 🌋

UTA | tzickmun

Hello! My name is Tyler, I'm a 0.5'er (hence the grad photo) originally from North Carolina! My favorite type of camel is the Bactrian Camel. Pronouns: he/him/his