X-Git-Url: http://lambda.jimpryor.net/git/gitweb.cgi?p=lambda.git;a=blobdiff_plain;f=index.mdwn;h=2bc3cc86421fa0e9f789a63d5ed53616aca782d3;hp=c18172b34c1a869d5d3edd4ce2262bff88c1743a;hb=f09a077defb2e9030c3e8581c445443838415ae2;hpb=3be23d511f494d473da5aabb67375e25073f7e2c diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index c18172b3..2bc3cc86 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -2,60 +2,23 @@ or: **What Philosophers and Linguists Can Learn From Theoretical Computer Science But Didn't Know To Ask** -This course will be co-taught by [Chris Barker](http://homepages.nyu.edu/~cb125/) and [Jim Pryor](http://www.jimpryor.net/). Linguistics calls it "G61.3340-002" and Philosophy calls it "G83.2296-001." - - -## Announcements ## - -The seminar meets on Mondays from 4-6, in +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 4-7, in the Linguistics building at 10 Washington Place, in room 104 (back of the first floor). -One student session will be held every Wednesday from 3-4. The other will be arranged to fit the schedule of those who'd like to attend but can't make the Wednesday time. (We first proposed Tuesdays from 11-12, but this time turns out not to be so helpful.) 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. - -There is now a [[lambda evaluator]] you can use in your browser (no need to install any software). -It can help you check whether your answer to some of the homework questions works correctly. - -There is now a [library](/lambda_library) of lambda-calculus arithmetical and list operations, some relatively advanced. - -## Lecture Notes and Assignments ## - -(13 Sept) Lecture notes for [[Week1]]; [[Assignment1]]. - -Topics: Applications; Basics of Lambda Calculus; Comparing Different Languages - -(20 Sept) Lecture notes for [[Week2]]; [[Assignment2]]. - -Topics: Reduction and Convertibility; Combinators; Evaluation Strategies and Normalization; Decidability; Lists and Numbers - -(27 Sept) Lecture notes for [[Week3]]; [[Assignment3]]. - -Topics: Recursion with Fixed Point Combinators - -(4 Oct) Lecture notes for Week 4 - - - -[[Upcoming topics]] - - -##[[Offsite Reading]]## +## Announcements ## -There's lots of links here already to tutorials and encyclopedia entries about many of the notions we'll be dealing with. +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. +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. ## Course Overview ## @@ -65,6 +28,7 @@ theoretical computer science and show how they can provide insight into established philosophical and linguistic problems. This is not a seminar about any particular technology or software. + Rather, it's about a variety of conceptual/logical ideas that have been developed in computer science and that linguists and philosophers ought to know, or may already be unknowingly trying to reinvent. @@ -95,11 +59,14 @@ 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. Our aim for the +in our home subjects where these tools 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. + 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 @@ -185,10 +152,20 @@ other. But these languages also have a lot in common, and if you're familiar with one of them, it's not difficult to move between it and the other. + ## Recommended Books ## @@ -196,15 +173,16 @@ It's not necessary to purchase these for the class. But they are good ways to ge * *An Introduction to Lambda Calculi for Computer Scientists*, by Chris Hankin, currently $17 on -[Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Lambda-Calculi-Computer-Scientists/dp/0954300653). +[Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0954300653). * (Another good book covering the same ground as the Hankin book, but more thoroughly, and in a more mathematical style, is *Lambda-Calculus and Combinators: -an Introduction*, by J. Roger Hindley and Jonathan P. Seldin. If you choose to read +an Introduction*, by J. Roger Hindley and Jonathan P. Seldin, currently $52 on [Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0521898854). If you choose to read both the Hankin book and this book, you'll notice the authors made some different terminological/notational choices. At first, this makes comprehension slightly slower, but in the long run it's helpful because it makes the arbitrariness of those choices more salient.) +* (Another good book, covering some of the same ground as the previous two, but also delving much deeper into typed lambda calculi, is *Types and Programming Languages*, by Benjamin Pierce, currently $61 on [Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0262162091). This book has many examples in OCaml.) * *The Little Schemer, Fourth Edition*, by Daniel P. Friedman and Matthias Felleisen, currently $23 on [Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262560992). @@ -226,12 +204,10 @@ superficial syntactic differences between these languages. [Here's a translation manual between them](http://www.mpi-sws.org/~rossberg/sml-vs-ocaml.html). - ---- All wikis are supposed to have a [[SandBox]], so this one does too. This wiki is powered by [[ikiwiki]]. -[[Test]]