I often have the pleasure of teaching UMD CS‘s undergraduate programming languages course, CMSC 330. Taken by every sophomore in our program, it has evolved into a pretty interesting course, and I find myself talking about it with various people I meet. As such, I thought it might be worth writing down what it’s about, in case others might also find the course (or elements of it) interesting or its materials useful. (Most of the course’s materials — lecture notes, projects, exams, homeworks — are freely available at the course homepage.) There is too much to say for one post, so I’ll break it into three parts. This post covers the overview and first 1/2 of the course, and the second post will cover the third quarter, and the last post will cover the last quarter while also making some broader connections.
Programming languages galore!