Policies
Academic Integrity
In Brief
The spirit of this policy is that actions which shortcut the learning process are forbidden while actions which promote learning are encouraged. Studying lecture materials together, for example, provides an additional avenue for learning and is encouraged. Using a solution you did not develop yourself is prohibited because it avoids the learning process entirely. (This thusly applies to solutions produced by generative AI.) It is your responsibility to know what is permissible and what is not. If you have any questions or doubts, please contact your instructor.
In Detail
Academic honesty is required in all your work. Under no circumstances may you hand in work done with or by someone else under your own name. Discussing ideas and approaches to problems with others on a general level is encouraged, but you should never share your solutions with anyone else nor allow others to share solutions with you. You may not examine solutions belonging to someone else, nor may you let anyone else look at or make a copy of your solutions. This includes, but is not limited to, obtaining solutions from students who previously took the course, solutions that can be found online, or solutions provided by generative AI (e.g. ChatGPT or Copilot).
In your solutions, you are permitted to include material which was distributed in class, material which is found in the course textbook, and material developed by or with an assigned partner. In these cases, you should always include detailed comments indicating on which parts of the assignment you received help and what your sources were.
When working on tests, exams, or similar assessments, you are not permitted to communicate with anyone about the exam during the entire examination period (even if you have already submitted your work). You are not permitted to use any resources to complete the exam other than those explicitly permitted by course policy. (For instance, you may not look at the course website during the exam unless explicitly permitted by the instructor when the exam is distributed.)
Failure to abide by these rules constitutes academic dishonesty and will lead to a hearing of the College Judiciary Committee. According to the Faculty Handbook:
Because plagiarism is considered to be so serious a transgression, it is the opinion of the faculty that for the first offense, failure in the course and, as appropriate, suspension for a semester or deprivation of the degree in that year is suitable; for a second offense, the penalty should normally be expulsion.
This policy applies to all course work, including but not limited to code, written solutions (e.g. proofs, analyses, reports, etc.), exams, and so on. This is not meant to be an enumeration of all possible violations; students are responsible for seeking clarification if there is any doubt about the level of permissible communication.
Please ask your instructor if you have any questions about what is acceptable in this course.
Grading
This course uses a standards-based grading model rather than a more traditional weighted-average grading model. You are probably familiar with weighted-average grading, in which you earn some number of points on each assessment (lab assignment, test, etc.) and your point totals on those assessments are weighted and averaged in some way that produces your final grade (e.g. scoring at least 93% of the total points earns an A grade). The purpose of standards-based grading is to move our focus from fine-grained points to the learning goals of the course. The work you do in this course will be largely the same as in any other Computer Science course — completing lab assignments and taking written tests — but you will be given opportunities to correct your mistakes and, consequentially, your work will be evaluated rigorously.
Grades
Each assignment or test question you submit in this course will correspond to one of the standards described in the sections below. There are ** standards in this course. Each piece of work you submit will yield one of the following results:
- If your work meets the requirements and expectations of the relevant standard, then you are marked as fully qualified (QQ) in that standard. Work which contains inconsequential errors can earn this grade.
- If your work largely meets the requirements and expectations of the relevant standard but contains an important error, then you are marked as partially qualified (PQ) for that standard. This grade is earned for work is mostly sufficient but requires some correction.
- If your work does not meet the requirements and expectations of the relevant standard, then you are marked as not qualified (NQ) for that standard. This grade is earned for work which contains multiple significant errors or which lacks important content. Effectively blank submissions will be marked not submitted (NS), which is an equivalent grade but helps to record which standards you have attempted.
Your mark in a standard can only be replaced by a higher mark given for later work. That is: if your first submission partially qualifies (PQ) for a standard and your second submission does not qualify (NQ) for that standard, then your mark in that standard remains PQ. Once you have qualified (QQ) in a standard, you no longer need to submit work for it.
Your final grade in this course is determined by the number of standards in which you fully qualified together with the number of pairs of standards in which you partially qualified. (That is: partially qualified standards count as half of a fully qualified standard.) The letter grade you earn in the course is determined by the following table.
| Qualifications | Letter Grade |
|---|---|
| 24 | A+ |
| 23 | A |
| 22 | A- |
| 21 | B+ |
| 20 | B |
| 19 | B- |
| 18 | C+ |
| 17 | C |
| 16 | C- |
| 15 | D+ |
| 14 | D |
| 13 | D- |
| 12 or less | F |
For example, a student who fully qualifies in 20 standards and partially qualfies in 3 standards would earn a A- (since 20+3×½ is at least 22 but less than 23). A student who fully qualifies in 17 standards and partially qualifies in 6 standards would earn a B.
Standards
The standards for the course are separated into three general categories: preparatory standards, compiler development standards, and examination standards. Each standard is identified by a two character abbreviation for reference.
Warmup Standards
Our work in this course will be completed in OCaml, a functional programming language with a variety of features we will find helpful. The early part of this course will be focused on learning the OCaml programming language. We will also have a syllabus quiz at the beginning of the semester to ensure everyone understands this syllabus as well as the examination process.
- Demonstrate an understanding of the course syllabus.
- Write programs to solve simple problems in OCaml.
- Write programs to apply data structures and higher-order functions in OCaml.
Compiler Development Standards
The majority of the lab work you will complete in this class will be on your compiler project. In this project, which spans the entire semester, you will add a variety of features to construct a working compiler for a series of small languages. Each lab assignment corresponds to one or two standards.
- Implement a compiler for a language which supports arithmetic operations.
- Extend the compiler to a language which includes booleans using a runtime binary representation.
- Extend the compiler to a language which provides run-time error checking and output via C function calls.
- Extend the compiler to provide compile-time error checking of function declarations and calls.
- Extend the compiler to a language which supports user-declared functions and function calls.
- Extend the compiler to a language which supports data structures via dynamic allocation.
- Extend the compiler to support the declaration and first-classs membership of higher-order functions.
- Extend the compiler to support partial application and higher-order function calls.
- Implement a mark-compact garbage collector.
- Extend the compiler to integrate and correctly call the garbage collector from within a generated program’s runtime.
- Extend the compiler to perform tail-call optimization.
- Extend the compiler to a language which provides multi-process parallelism.
- Implement a left-recursive parser for a simple functional language.
Examination Standards
This course will also include brief bi-weekly tests in which you will demonstrate conceptual familiarity with the course material. Please see the Written Examinations section below for more information about these assessments.
- Manually trace, understand, and debug simple OCaml programs.
- Explain abstract syntax, variable scoping, and stack allocation.
- Explain and use run-time binary representations.
- Explain the compilation of function calls and C calling conventions.
- Explain the compilation of functions and bird calling conventions.
- Explain heap allocation.
- Explain the compilation of first-class functions and partial application.
- Explain garbage collection and heap memory management.
Coursework
Coursework in this course consists of two general categories: lab assignments and written examinations. Both types of coursework have multiple opportunities for qualification.
Lab Assignments
The first two lab assignments in this course are designed to assist you in learning the OCaml programming language. These lab assignments are completed individually by each student. They should be completed by the time you start working on your compiler.
The remaining lab assignments in this course involve working on your semester-long compiler project. You may work on this project by yourself or with a partner. The compiler assignments are sequential: each relies upon having completed the last as you progressively develop code in a single repository. Do not fall behind in your compiler assignments as it would have unfortunate ramifications throughout the entire semester.
Lab assignments are due at 11:59pm on the nights listed in the lab write-up (typically Monday or Thursday). To mitigate the aforementioned ramifications, however, these due dates are advisory. There is no direct penalty for missing a lab assignment due date. However, lab assignments will only receive credit if submitted on or before the last day of classes. If you fall behind on your compiler assignments, you may find it impossible to catch up before the end of the semester and this will have a significant impact on your final grade.
Submission
Because the due date is so flexible, you will need to take additional action to submit your compiler assignments. Pushing your code is not enough. Submitting your assignment requires a few additional terminal commands that are described at the end of the lab assignment write-ups.
Once your submitted lab assignments are evaluated, you will receive feedback in the form of a grade (NQ, PQ, or QQ) and written comments. If your work did not qualify for the related standard, you may correct your work and submit it again. There is no limit to the number of times you may submit your work, but it may take a few days before your instructor provides feedback for a particular submission. Be sure to evaluate your lab work carefully before submitting it in order to avoid waiting unnecessarily for graded feedback.
Written Examinations
This course features bi-weekly tests in which you will demonstrate your conceptual understanding of the compilation techniques we discuss in this course. Each of the tests appearing on the course schedule describes the examination standards on which you will be evaluated. These tests will be administered at the beginning of that week’s lab session.
The exams appearing on the course schedule will take the entire lab session and will provide additional opportunities to qualify for previous examination standards. In addition to any new standards appearing on the exam (as noted on the schedule), you will receive questions for any examination standards from previous tests and exams for which you have not fully qualified. If there are no new standards appearing on an exam and you have already fully qualified in all previous examination standards, you have no need to take that exam; you can skip lab that day.
The final exam for this course will be conducted in the same fashion as the exams described above. It will be scheduled during a regular Swarthmore final exam time slot and will include any examination standard for which you have not fully qualified. There will be no new standards on the final exam, so you need not take the final if you have already fully qualified on all examination standards.
Exceptional Situations
If a medical condition or other unforeseen emergency has interfered with your ability to complete your coursework, please contact your Dean’s office and your instructor. Faculty will work with your class Dean in order to determine appropriate accommodations for your situation. If only your work in this course has been impacted, you may instead contact only your instructor to determine an appropriate course of action.
Academic Accommodations
If you believe you need accommodations for a disability or a chronic medical condition, please visit the Student Disability Services website for details about the accommodations process. Since accommodations require early planning and are not retroactive, contact Student Disability Services as soon as possible. You are also welcome to contact your instructor privately to discuss your academic needs. However, all disability-related accommodations must be arranged, in advance, through Student Disability Services.