or: **What Philosophers and Linguists Can Learn From Theoretical Computer Science But Didn't Know To Ask**
-This course is co-taught by [Chris Barker](http://homepages.nyu.edu/~cb125/) and [Jim Pryor](http://www.jimpryor.net/). Linguistics calls it "G61.3340" and Philosophy calls it "G83.2296"
-The seminar meets in spring 2015 on Thursdays from 4 until a bit before 7 (with a short break in the middle), in
+This course is co-taught by [Chris Barker](http://homepages.nyu.edu/~cb125/) and [Jim Pryor](http://www.jimpryor.net/). Linguistics calls it "LING-GA 3340" and Philosophy calls it "PHIL-GA 2296".
+The seminar meets in spring 2015 on Thursdays from 4 until a bit before 7 (with a short break in the middle), in
the Linguistics building at 10 Washington Place, in room 103 (front of the first floor).
<!--
-One student session will be held every Wednesday from 3-4 on the
-fourth floor at 10 Washington Place.
+One student session will be held every Wednesday from XX-YY at WHERE.
-->
## Announcements ##
This wiki will be undergoing lots of changes throughout the semester, and particularly in these first few days as we get it set up, migrate over some of the content from the previous time
-we taught this course, and iron out various technical wrinkles. Please be patient.
+we taught this course, and iron out various technical wrinkles. Please be patient. When you sit down to read the wiki, it's a good idea to always hit "Refresh" in your browser to make sure you're reading the latest additions and refinements of the website. (Sometimes these will be tweaks, other times very substantial. Updates will happen at miscellaneous hours, sometimes many times in a given day.)
If you've eager to learn, though, you don't have to wait on us to be ready to serve you. You can go look at the [archived first version](http://lambda1.jimpryor.net) of this course. Just keep in mind that
-the text and links there haven't been updated.
+the text and links there haven't been updated. And/or you can get started on installing the software and ordering some of the books.
As we mentioned in class, if you're following the course and would like to be emailed occasionally, send an email to <mailto:jim.pryor@nyu.edu>, saying "lambda" in the subject line. Most often, we will just post announcements to this website, rather than emailing you. But occasionally an email might be more appropriate.
As we mentioned in class, we're also going to schedule a session to discuss the weekly homeworks. If you'd like to participate in this, please complete [this Doodle poll](http://doodle.com/7xrf4w8xq4i9e5za). It asks when you are available on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
+<!--
+One student session will be held every Wednesday from XX-YY at WHERE.
+
+For those who'd like to attend the section but can't make the
+Wednesday time: If you're one of the students who
+wants to meet for Q&A at some other time in the week, let us know.
+
+You should see the student sessions as opportunities to clear up lingering
+issues from material we've discussed, and help get a better footing for what
+we'll be doing the next week. It would be smart to make a serious start on that
+week's homework, for instance, before the session.
+-->
+
Here is information about [[How to get the programming languages running on your computer]].
+Here are Lecture notes for [[Week1]]; [[Assignment1]]. (*These will be posted soon.*)
+
+> Topics: Basics of Functional Programming
+
+<!--
+* Henceforth, unless we say otherwise, every homework will be "due" by
+Wednesday morning after the Thursday seminar in which we refer to it.
+(Usually we'll post the assignment shortly before the seminar, but don't
+rely on this.) However, for every assignment there will be a "grace
+period" of one further week for you to continue working on it if you
+have trouble and aren't able to complete the assignment to your
+satisfaction by the due date. You shouldn't hesitate to talk to us---or
+each other!---about the assignments when you do have trouble. We don't
+mind so much if you come across answers to the assignment when browsing
+the web, or the Little Schemer book, or anywhere. So long as you can
+reason yourself through the solutions and experience for yourself the
+insights they embody.
+
+ We reserve the privilege to ruthlessly require you to
+explain your solutions in conversations at any point, in section or in
+class.
+
+ You should always *aim* to complete the assignments by the "due" date,
+as this will fit best with the progress of the seminar.
+
+ The assignments will tend to be quite challenging. Again, you should by
+all means talk amongst yourselves, and to us, about strategies and
+questions that come up when working through them.
+
+ We will not always be able to predict accurately which problems are
+easy and which are hard. If we misjudge, and choose a problem that is
+too hard for you to complete to your own satisfaction, it is still
+very much worthwhile (and very much appreciated) if you would explain
+what is difficult, what you tried, why what you tried didn't work, and
+what you think you need in order to solve the problem.
+-->
+
## Course Overview ##
-The goal of this seminar is to introduce concepts and techniques from
+The overarching goal of this seminar is to introduce concepts and techniques from
theoretical computer science and show how they can provide insight
into established philosophical and linguistic problems.
ever more (sometime spectacularly) creative ways. But when your only
hammer is classical logic, every problem looks like modus ponens. In
contrast, computer scientists have invested considerable ingenuity in
-studying tool design, and have made remarkable progress.
+studying the design of their conceptual tools (among other things), and they've made much progress that we can benefit from.
"Why shouldn't I reinvent some idea X for myself? It's intellectually
rewarding!" Yes it is, but it also takes time you might have better
unnoticed. For all these reasons you're better off understanding the
state of the art.
-The theoretical tools we'll be introducing aren't very familiar to
+The theoretical tools we'll be introducing aren't part of the diet of most
everyday programmers, but they are prominent in academic computer science,
especially in the fields of functional programming and type theory.
Of necessity, this course will lay a lot of logical groundwork. But throughout
we'll be aiming to mix that groundwork with real cases
-in our home subjects where these tools play central roles.
+in our home subjects where these tools can (or already do, covertly) play central roles.
Our aim for the
course is to enable you to make these tools your own; to have enough
understanding of them to recognize them in use, use them yourself at least
in simple ways, and to be able to read more about them when appropriate.
-<!--
-Once we get up and running, the central focii of the course will be
-**continuations**, **types**, and **monads**. One of the on-going themes will
-concern evaluation order and issues about how computations (inferences,
-derivations) unfold in (for instance) time. The key analytic technique is to
-form a static, order-independent model of a dynamic process. We'll be
-discussing this in much more detail as the course proceeds.
-
-The logical systems we'll be looking at include:
-
-* the pure/untyped lambda calculus
-* combinatorial logic
-* the simply-typed lambda calculus
-* polymorphic types with System F
-* some discussion of dependent types
-* if time permits, "indeterministic" or "preemptively parallel" computation and linear logic
-
-
-Other keywords:
- recursion using the Y-combinator
- evaluation-order stratgies
- normalizing properties
- the Curry-Howard isomorphism(s)
- monads in category theory and computation
--->
+[[More about the topics and larger themes of the course]]
+
## Who Can Participate? ##
in formal semantics or philosophy of language. If you have concerns about your
background, come discuss them with us.
-<!--
-This class will count as satisfying the logic requirement for Philosophy
-PhD students; however if this would be your first or only serious
+If you hope to have the class satisfy the logic requirement for Philosophy PhD students, this needs to be discussed with us and approved in advance. If this would be
+your first or only serious
engagement with graduate-level formal work you should consider
carefully, and must discuss with us, (1) whether you'll be adequately
prepared for this course, and (2) whether you'd be better served by
-taking a logic course (at a neighboring department, or at NYU next year)
+taking a logic course
with a more canonical syllabus.
--->
+This term you could take PHIL-GA 1003, [Logic for Philosophers](http://jdh.hamkins.org), offered by Joel Hamkins on Wednesdays 12-2.
Faculty and students from outside of NYU Linguistics and Philosophy are welcome
to audit, to the extent that this coheres well with the needs of our local
Racket stands to Scheme in something like the relation Firefox stands to HTML.
-(Wikipedia on [Lisp](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisp_%28programming_language%29),
+ (Wikipedia on [Lisp](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisp_%28programming_language%29),
[Scheme](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheme_%28programming_language%29),
and [Racket](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racket_%28programming_language%29).)
more generally; but you can assume that what we're talking about always works more
specifically in OCaml.
-(Wikipedia on [ML](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ML_%28programming_language%29),
+ (Wikipedia on [ML](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ML_%28programming_language%29),
[Caml](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caml),
and [OCaml](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OCaml).)
familiar with one of them, it's not difficult to move between it and the
other.
-(Wikipedia on [Haskell](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haskell_%28programming_language%29).)
+ (Wikipedia on [Haskell](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haskell_%28programming_language%29).)
<a name=installing></a>
[[How to get the programming languages running on your computer]]
-<!--
-[[Family tree of functional programming languages]]
-
-[[Translating between OCaml Scheme and Haskell]]
-
-## What is Functional Programming? ##
-
-Here's a [survey conducted at Microsoft](http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=141506) asking programmers what they understand "functional programming" to be. Don't take their responses to be authoritative... this is a just a "man in the street" (seat?) poll.
-
-Read more about the [uptake of Haskell](http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2010/12/haskell-researchers-announce-discovery.html) among programmers in the street.
--->
## Recommended Books ##
All wikis are supposed to have a [[SandBox]], so this one does too.
This wiki is powered by [[ikiwiki]].
-
-