CS2013-final-report

COMP 412: Topics in Compiler Construction, Rice University
Houston, TX
Keith Cooper
keith@rice.edu
http://www.clear.rice.edu/comp412
Knowledge Areas that contain topics and learning outcomes covered in the course
Knowledge Area
Programming Languages (PL) 21
Algorithms and Complexity (AL) 5
Total Hours of Coverage
Where does the course fit in your curriculum
COMP 412 is an optional course. It is typically taken by fourth-year undergraduate students and first-year graduate
students in either the Professional Masters’ degree program or the PhD program. Some advanced third year
students also take the course.
Enrollment ranges from 40 to 70 students.
What is covered in the course
Scanning, parsing, semantic elaboration, intermediate representation, implementation of the procedure as an
abstraction, implementation of expressions, assignments, and control-flow constructs, brief overview of
optimization, instruction selection, instruction scheduling, register allocation. (Full syllabus is posted on the
website, listed above.)
What is the format of the course
The course operates as a face-to-face lecture course, with three contact hours per week. The course includes three
significant programming assignments (a local register allocator, an LL(1) parser generator, and a local instruction
scheduler). The course relies on an online discussion forum (Piazza) to provide assistance on the programming
assignments.
How are students assessed
Students are assessed on their performance on three exams, spaced roughly five weeks apart, and on the code that
they submit for the programming assignments. Exams count for 50% of the grade, with the other 50% derived
from the programming assignments.
The programming assignments take students two to three weeks to complete.
Course textbooks and materials
The course uses the textbook Engineering a Compiler by Cooper and Torczon. (The textbook was written from
the course.) Full lecture notes are available online (see course web site).
Students may use any programming language, except Perl, in their programming assignments. Assignments are
evaluated based on a combination of the written report and examination of the code.
Why do you teach the course this way
This course has evolved, in its topics, coverage, and programming exercises, over the last twenty years. Students
generally consider the course to be challenging—both in terms of the number and breadth of the concepts
presented and in terms of the issues raised in the programming assignments. We ask students to approximate the
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