Syllabus for Advanced Functional Programming

Learning outcomes

The course will introduce students to different functional programming languages as well as discuss functional programming concepts and techniques. On completion of the course the student shall be able to:

• explain and apply different evaluation strategies such as strict and non-strict, lazy, sequential and parallel evaluation,
• explain and apply lazy evaluation, particularly how it can be used to simplify program structures and to define infinite data structures,
• explain and apply the macro concept, particularly how it can be used to define new program constructs,
• explain and apply the actor model in functional programming,
• explain and apply the concepts binding, currying, continuation, meta programming, monad, tail recursion, types, parametric and ad-hoc polymorphism,
• construct programs in various functional programming languages using the concepts and techniques mentioned above,
• analyse and evaluate differences and similarities between these programming languages.

Content

Programming in a selection of functional programming languages (e.g. Haskell, Erlang and Lisp). Lazy evaluation, parallellism, concurrency, meta programming. Concepts such as bindings and polymorphism. Programming techniques such as continuations and monads. Comparisons between the languages.

Instruction

Lectures, labs, seminars and programming assignments.

Assessment

Oral presentations, written assignments and programming assignments.

If there are special reasons for doing so, an examiner may make an exception from the method of assessment indicated and allow a student to be assessed by another method. An example of special reasons might be a certificate regarding special pedagogical support from the disability coordinator of the university.