Advanced Functional Programming

News

2015-05-18

AFP 2015 "re-lab" announced: https://github.com/AFPChalmers15/AFPcourse/blob/master/re-lab.md

Staff / contact information

Patrik Jansson, Lecturer and Examiner, patrik.jansson@chalmers
Dan Rosén, Teaching Assistant, danr@chalmers
Anton Ekblad, Teaching Assistant, anton.ekblad@chalmers
Fabian Ruch, Teaching Assistant, ruch@student.chalmers
Contact: email to Patrik or Dan or Anton (write in English), Patrik: 031-7725415, 0763-694349
Homepage: http://www.cse.chalmers.se/edu/course/afp/
Discussion board: afp15 (at Google Groups)
Office hours: Dan: Wed. 10-12, Anton: Mon 15-17, Fabian: Tue 15-17 (in 5209), Patrik: Mon. 15-16

Overview

AFP is an elective, advanced MSc level university course. It is run by the FP group at the CSE department (Chalmers and GU).
Contains three programming assignments, done in pairs
and a written exam (you may bring a "summary sheet"). Official examination details
Course "size": 7.5hec = 1/8 study year ~= 200h = 25h/week => time to get started;-)
Grading: The final grade of the course is a based on a weighted average of the lab grade and the exam grade (provided that both are at least "Pass"). The weights are the number of credits: 4.5cr (60%) for the labs and 3cr (40%) for the exam. Among the labs, number 2 has a higher weight.

Aim and context

Learning outcomes: (see also the lecture 16 overview from 2015)

DSL: design embedded domain specific languages
- DSL.Concepts: (abstract) syntax, semantics, ...
- DSL.Implement: implement EDSLs in Haskell (as combinator libraries)
Types: read, understand and extend Haskell programs which use advanced type system features
- Types.Class: type classes, newtypes, deriving, ...
- Types.GADT: (generalised) algebraic datatypes & type families
- Types.HOT: functors, monads and monad transformers
Spec: use specification based development techniques
- Spec.Test: formulate and test properties about the program
- Spec.Prove: reason about correctness of functional programs
- Spec.Trans: transform programs on the basis of reasoning
Expl: explain and discuss the above topics

Context

The AFP course requires a BSc in Computer Science or equivalent, mathematical maturity, a basic course on Functional Programming (like our version) and a course on Programming Lanuages (like ProgLangTech or ProgPara). Other recommended courses are Logic in CS, Algorithms and Finite automata theory and formal languages.

Course Evaluation

For the purpose of course evaluation each course has student representatives. Their role includes giving the teachers feedback on the course. Notes from the meeting(s).

AFP student representatives 2015 are M. Öhrman at GU and C. Yuting (CID=yutingc), J. Pettersson (pjack), N. Wärvik (warvik), J. Nilsson Hansen (nhansen), R. Soponpunth (ronakorn). They can be reached by CID@student.chalmers.se.

Chalmers central instructions on course evaluation.

The final evaluation 2014 said "Excellent course with an overall score of 4.7. The course is considered hard yet adequate.". Suggested changes were minor.

Lectures

Official schedule (TimeEdit). Most of the course weeks have two lectures (first week in EL43):

	Mon		13.15 - 15.00		TimeEdit
	Thu		10.00 - 11.45		TimeEdit

Detailed information on the lectures are here.

Course material

	The course book (nick-named "The World" or "RWH" below) is "Real World Haskell" by Bryan O'Sullivan, Don Stewart, and John Goerzen. Some related papers to read and other material will be provided with the lectures.
These books are all good but presented in order of decreasing relevance for the AFP course.
"The Haskell School of Expression" by Paul Hudak ("The School") "The Fun of Programming" edited by Jeremy Gibbons and Oege de Moor ("The Fun") "Thinking Functionally with Haskell" by Richard Bird ("Think") "Programming in Haskell" by Graham Hutton ("The Prog.") "Haskell -- The Craft of Functional Programming" by Simon Thompson ("The Craft")

Advanced Functional Programming, Spring 2015 (TDA342 / DIT260)