CS2013-final-report

What is the format of the course
Colorado State University uses a semester system: this course is 15 weeks long with 2 one and a half hour of
lectures per week and 1 weekly recitation section (4 total contact hours / week, for approximately 60 total hours
not counting the final exam). There is a 16 th week for final exams. In the past this course has been only on
campus, but starting in Spring 2013 we are providing it as a blended on campus and online course.
How are students assessed
There are 7 programming assignments and 4 written homeworks, which together constitute 50% of the course
grade. The programming assignments lead the students through the iterative development of a compiler written in
Java that translates a subset of Java to AVR assembly code. The AVR assembly code is then assembled and linked
with the avr-gcc tool chain to run on Meggy Jr game devices. The process is iterative in that the first
programming assignment that starts building the compiler results in a compiler that can generate the AVR code for
the setPixel() call; therefore students can write MeggyJava programs that draw 8x8 pictures on their devices.
Later assignments incrementally add features to the MeggyJava language and data structures such as abstract
syntax trees to the compiler. We also have a simulator available at http://code.google.com/p/mjsim/ to enable
debugging of the generated AVR code and for grading purposes. Students start doing their programming
assignments individually, but are then encouraged to work as programming pairs. We expect students to spend
approximately 8-12 hours each week outside of the classroom on the course.
Course textbooks and materials
Lecture notes written by the instructor and materials available online largely replace a textbook, though for
additional resources, we recommend Modern Compiler Implementation in Java (Second Edition) by Andrew
Appel, Cambridge, 2002. Additionally we provide the students with a link and reading assignments for a free
online book Basics in Compiler Design by Torben Mogensen. The lecture notes are available at the webpage
provided above.
Why do you teach the course this way
We view the compiler course as bringing together many theoretical and practical skills from previous courses and
enabling the students to use these skills within the context of a full semester project. The key elements of this
course are the approach to iterative compiler development, the emphasis on many software development tools such
as debuggers, revision control, etc., and mapping a high level programming language, Java, to a popular assembly
language for embedded systems. All of these elements are new editions to the compiler course in our department
and have been incorporated into the course since 2007. In general the move to targeting an active assembly
language AVR that operates on a game device Meggy Jr has been more popular with the students than the previous
targets of C and then MIPS.
This course is an elective and students do consider it to be challenging. Many students discuss the compiler
developed in this course with potential employers. Additionally graduates report that understanding how a
language maps to assembly helps their debugging skills after starting positions in industry after their degree.
Body of Knowledge coverage
KA Knowledge Unit Topics Covered Hours
AL
Basic Automata Computability and
Complexity
Finite state machines, regular expressions, and context
free grammars
2
AL
Advanced Automata Computability
and Complexity
NFAs, DFAs, their equivalence, and push-down
automata.
2
PL
Event Driven and Reactive
Programming
Programming the Meggy Jr game device. 3
PL Program Representation All 1
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