X-Git-Url: http://lambda.jimpryor.net/git/gitweb.cgi?p=lambda.git;a=blobdiff_plain;f=index.mdwn;h=f37eaeb7ef4727fae5110db2caae6cf18c36bec9;hp=c18172b34c1a869d5d3edd4ce2262bff88c1743a;hb=e33cbd6c0daaa5186b1326ba339a6d22fda6a476;hpb=9cb038c46ca337f654266aa75769bb304ed3cafb diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index c18172b3..f37eaeb7 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -2,60 +2,17 @@ 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]]## - -There's lots of links here already to tutorials and encyclopedia entries about many of the notions we'll be dealing with. - +## Announcements ## ## Course Overview ## @@ -65,6 +22,7 @@ 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 +53,14 @@ 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 +146,20 @@ 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 +167,16 @@ 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 +198,10 @@ 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]]