6.S184 - Zombies drink caffeinated 6.001

Introduction

The course description on the SIPB IAP page sums this class up best:

Zombie-like, 6.001 rises from the dead to threaten students again. Unlike a zombie, though, it's moving quite a bit faster than it did the first time. Like the original, don't walk into the class expecting that it will teach you Scheme; instead, it attempts to teach thought patterns for computer science, and the structure and interpretation of computer programs. Four problem sets will be assigned and graded.

Prerequisites: some programming experience; high confusion threshold.

Your tour guides for this adventure are: Alex Vandiver, Ben Vandiver, Keegan McAllister, Mike Phillips, Zev Benjamin, Ben Barenblat, and Russell McClellan. To contact them, you can email 6.001-zombies at the obvious domain.

Logistics

• Class meets TR7-9pm throughout IAP, in 32-044
• There will also be an optional lab session on the 9th in 32-083
• 6 units of P/D/F credit are available to the approximately first 30 students registered officially with the Registrar. Only the problem sets are graded.
• For the most part, arbitrary numbers of students for credit are acceptable. The limitation on "approximately 30 students" applies only for our grading sanity; just show up to the first lecture if you're interested, and we'll figure something out if we're totally overwhelmed.

Caffeinated Lectures

Slides presented in class will be included below. For each, we've noted which SICP chapters and which Spring 2007 lectures we've drawn the material from, in case you want to delve deeper, get a second opinion, read ahead, etc. Please note that the book covers a lot of additional material, and we are mostly tracking the old lectures, not the textbook.

• Lecture 1: [Printable] [With slide transitions] Procedural abstraction and recursion (SICP chapter 1. Spring 2007 lectures 1, 2, and 3)
  • Recitation material: Part 1, Part 2, and Solutions
• Lecture 2: [Printable] [With slide transitions] (SICP chapter 2. Spring 2007 lectures 5, 7, and 9)
  • Recitation material: Handout, and Solutions
• Lecture 3: [Printable] (SICP chapters 3.1 - 3.3 Spring 2007 lectures 11, 14, Optional online tutor exercises: Problem set 6.)
  • Recitation material: Handout, and Solutions
• Lecture 4: [Printable] (SICP chapters 4.1. Spring 2007 lectures 17 and 18) Optional online tutor exercises: Problem sets 8 and 9 (part 1).
  • Recitation material: Handout and Solutions
• Lecture 5: [Printable] [With slide transitions]
  • Recitation material: eval-broken.scm
• Lecture 6: [Printable] [LibreOffice slides]
  • Object system #2 from lecture: Scheme code
  • Recitation material: Handout

Problem sets

Problem sets should be saved as plain text, and emailed to 6.S184-psets or 6.S184-psets-no-credit at the obvious domains.

• Problem Set 0: Basic scheme. Due by 7pm on Thursday, January 10th.
  • Handout
  • Code: simple-integration.scm
• Problem Set 1: Integration and differentiation. Due by 7pm on Tuesday, January 15th.
  • Handout
  • Code: calculus.scm
• Problem Set 2: Simplifier. Due by 7pm on Tuesday, January 22nd.
  • Handout
  • Code: simplifier.scm, stack-tests.scm
• Problem Set 3: Metacircular evaluator. Due by 7pm on Tuesday, January 29th.
  • Handout
  • Code: eval.scm
• Problem Set 4: OOP evaluator (The Adventure Game). Due by 11:59pm on Tuesday, February 5th.
  • Handout
  • p4-scheme-files.zip - all of the scheme files below
  • Code: oo-eval.scm - Run this from DrRacket; rest will be pulled in
  • Code: oo-eval-extras.scm
  • Code: alyssa-tests.scm
  • Code: oo-world.scm
  • Code: oo-types.scm
  • Code: oo-util.scm

Resources

• Racket (previously DrScheme), the scheme evaluator we will be using
  • Also available on Athena machines: add drracket; drracket
  • For language selection, select "Use the language declared in the source." Hit the details button, and set the Output Style to 'write'. The Language menu will allow you to make these changes.
• Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, the textbook written for 6.001. A PDF version is also available.
• Lecture notes from 6.001, Spring 2007 might be useful for getting extra exposition on some topics as well, or to look ahead before the Caffeinated slides for those topics are posted.
• 6.001 online tutor, from the MIT iCampus XTutor project. This contains online problem sets you can do and get instant feedback (you will grow to love the "check" button as much as students of yore). We won't grade these — so ignore the due dates associated with them! — but some people may find it a useful way to do little exercises to check their understanding of the topics presented. It also contains online versions of the lectures, with synchronized audio and slides.
• The Revised⁵ Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme: PDF | HTML

Getting help

• You can e-mail the course staff at: 6.001-zombies at the obvious domain.
• Students are also welcome to join the staff on Zephyr, MIT's messaging system. Subscribe to the class named "6.S184". If you're new to Zephyr, we recommend the excellent Barnowl Zephyr client.

Acknowledgments

Since this course is a heavily condensed version of 6.001, we owe thanks to all who have ever taught or otherwise supported 6.001 over its long run. While these people are too numerous to list here, there are definitely some names we would be remiss to omit:

• Eric Grimson, who taught 6.001 a total of 27 times, and from whose lecture slides and problem sets we have borrowed heavily.
• Gerry Sussman and Hal Abelson, the original architects of the course and authors of the SICP text.
• Anne Hunter, Course 6's fairy godmother, for taking an interest and helping make sure 6.S184 happened.
• SIPB, the Student Information Processing Board, for additional sponsorship