UMBC CMSC331-03&5 Programming Languages, Spring 2026

News Archive

• [Mon May 11 12:40 2026]   Prof. Chang's office hours on Tuesday May 12 cancelled. Send question by email.

• [Fri May 08 17:00 2026]   Reading & Lecture Quiz 12 posted. Due Tue 05/12/26, 11:59pm

• [Thu May 07 11:45 2026]   Room Change for Final Exam: for Section 5 (only), the final exam will be held in Sondheim 103 (not Fine Arts 215). Timing is the same, 10:30am to 12:30pm on Tuesday May 19.

• [Sun May 03 10:00 2026]   Erroneous scores for Homework 6 were posted last night. Fixed now.

• [Fri May 01 14:30 2026]   Reading & Lecture Quiz 11 posted. Due Tue 05/05/26, 11:59pm

• [Fri May 01 01:30 2026]   Homework 10 posted. Due Thu 05/07/26   Submit on Google and on GL.

• [Thu Apr 23 23:15 2026]   Reading & Lecture Quiz 10 due date extended to Tue 4/28/26.

• [Thu Apr 23 23:00 2026]   Homework 9, Due Thu 04/30/26   Submit on GL only.

• [Fri Apr 17 11:45 2026]   Reading & Lecture Quiz 10 posted. Due Tue 04/21/26, 11:59pm

• [Thu Apr 16 12:30 2026]   Fixed typo in Homework 8 Question 3: dopt.out replaced with doopt.out in Step 1.

• [Wed Apr 15 09:12 2026]   Fixed typo in Homework 8 Question 2, Part 3. Inserted n in lambda expression for PRED.

• [Tue Apr 14 12:15 2026]   Homework 8 updated to version 2.
  • Question 2, Part 3, now says: Confirm that PRED 2 does indeed evaluate to 1 by showing every step of the derivation.
  • Question 3, Step 5. Added hint on pattern matching for array indices.

• [Fri Apr 10 00:10 2026]   Reading & Lecture Quiz 9 posted. Due Tue 04/14/26, 11:59pm

• [Fri Apr 10 09:50 2026]   Homework 8 version 1.01 fixes some typos and includes some minor wording and formatting changes for clarity.

• [Fri Apr 10 00:10 2026]   Homework 8, Due Thu 04/16/26   Submit on Google and on GL.

• [Tue Apr 07 15:25 2026]   Homework 7 was updated to version 2.1 with clarification in Step 7 that CompTail has the option to generate ε

  CompTail   ⟶   <   F   CompTail   |   ε

• [Mon Apr 06 12:20 2026]   Homework 7 was updated to version 2 with instructions for testing.

  Also, dolexparse.hs and doparse.hs were changed slightly. The only change is printing out a blank line between test cases to improve readability of the output.

• [Fri Apr 03 12:05 2026]   Reading & Lecture Quiz 8 posted. Due Tue 04/07/26, 11:59pm

• [Fri Apr 03 11:35 2026]   Advanced notice that Prof. Chang's office hours on Tues 4/14 will be held 11:30am   12:30pm (instead of 2:30pm   3:30pm).

• [Thu Apr 02 23:55 2026]   Homework 7 posted. Due Thu 04/09/26   Submit on GL only.

• [Wed Apr 01 13:00 2026]   File expr2.txt for Homework 6 was updated. Please consult latest version.

• [Fri Mar 27 23:05 2026]   Reading & Lecture Quiz 7 posted. Due Tue 03/31/26, 11:59pm

• [Thu Mar 26 23:05 2026]   Homework 6 posted. Due Thu 04/02/26   Submit on Google and on GL.

• [Thu Mar 05 14:45 2026]   Reading & Lecture Quiz 6 posted. Due Tue 03/10/26, 11:59pm

• [Thu Mar 05 12:10 2026]   Reading & Lecture Quizzes 1-5 have been reopened. You may use them for review. Retaking the quizzes will not change your previously recorded scores.

• [Tue Mar 03 17:00 2026]   The due date for Homework 5 has been pushed back to March 26 (Thursday after Spring Break). This is not because HW5 takes 3 weeks to accomplish, but to give students maximum flexibility to work around project due dates, midterm exams and Spring Break travel. Please use the flexibility wisely.

  This does not affect the due dates of the remaining homework assignments.

• [Tue Mar 03 17:00 2026]    

  Topics for Midterm Exam 1 (on Thu March 12):

  • Textbook: Chapters 1-5, Section 6.1
  • Lectures 1-7 (Jan 27 – Feb 17)
  • Homework 1-4, including:
    • write Haskell function using conditionals, guards, list comprehension, pattern matching and recursion.
    • write Haskell functions that work with lists
    • interpret logic statements and Horn clauses
    • draw transition diagrams for DFAs
    • write regular expressions in PCRE syntax (without lookaheads)
  • Nothing on Context-Free Grammars or parsing (will test on Exam 2).

  See slides from today's lecture for more details.

• [Mon Mar 02 13:55 2026]   A sample exam for Midterm 1 is available in the handouts folder .

• [Fri Feb 27 11:07 2026]   The issue with Homework 5 has been resolved. OIT has deployed the PCRE library for Haskell on GL.

• [Fri Feb 27 11:07 2026]   Reading & Lecture Quiz 5 posted. Due Tue 03/03/26, 11:59pm

• [Thu Feb 26 23:35 2026]   Homework 5 posted. Due Thu 03/05/26 (??)   Submit on Google and on GL.

  Note: In a recent system update, OIT forgot to install the Haskell PCRE library. If this is not resolved quickly, the due date for Homework 5 will be pushed back.

• [Wed Feb 25 23:35 2026]   Our TA Riya Revdiwala's Wednesday office hours have moved to 4pm–5pm for the rest of the semester.

  The class calendar has been updated.

• [Fri Feb 20 12:35 2026]   Reading & Lecture Quiz 4 posted. Due Tue 02/24/26, 11:59pm

• [Thu Feb 19 22:25 2026]   Homework 4 posted. Due Thu 02/26/26   Submit on Google and on GL.

• [Mon Feb 16 17:08 2026]   Clarified that in Question 3 of Homework 3 that "vowel" means lower-case vowels.

• [Fri Feb 13 14:25 2026]   Code shown in class on Thursday (different implementations of reverse) is available on GL:

  /afs/umbc.edu/users/c/h/chang/pub/cs331stuff/examples/2026-02-12-reverse/

• [Fri Feb 13 10:15 2026]   Reading & Lecture Quiz 3 posted. Due Tue 02/17/26, 11:59pm

• [Thu Feb 12 23:03 2026]   Homework 3 posted. Due Thu 02/19/25   Submit on GL only.

• [Fri Feb 06 13:15 2026]   If you are submitting homework late on GL, you must submit all files to the late directory.

  Let's say for Homework 1 that you completed Q1 on time Thursday, but left Q2 for Friday. You must still submit all 3 files to the hw01-1Fri.

  Basically, we only look in the last late directory and ignore any prior submissions.

• [Fri Feb 06 11:15 2026]   Reading & Lecture Quiz 2 posted. Due Tue 02/10/26, 11:59pm

• [Thu Feb 05 12:15 2026]   Here are two good books for further exploration in mathematical logic:

  	Logicomix   (ISBN 9781596914520) by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou is a graphic novel (comic book) recounting the life of Bertrand Russell and his search for "absolute truth". Full disclosure: Papadimitriou is my wife's PhD advisor's PhD advisor.
  	Godel's Proof   (ISBN 0814703259) by Ernest Nagel and James R. Newman gives you just enough detail to appreciate Godel's Incompleteness Theorem. Available from the library: online or in the stacks.

• [Wed Feb 04 15:32 2026]   Homework 2 posted. Due Thu 02/12/19   Submit on GL only.

• [Tue Feb 03 15:45 2026]   Our TA office hours will be held in ITE 340.
  Course Description, PDF syllabus, contacts page and class calendar updated.

• [Fri Jan 30 17:00 2026]   Reading & Lecture Quiz 1 posted. Due Tue 02/03/26 Fri 02/06/26, 11:59pm

• [Thu Jan 29 11:50 2026]   Due to UMBC closure from last weekend's snow storm, Week 1 lectures will be asynchronous. Video recordings have been posted on Google Drive here.

  Check your email for more details, or go to the messages archive for the class mailing list.

• [Thu Jan 29 09:30 2026]   Homework 1 posted. Due Thu 02/05/26   Submit on GL only.

• [Mon Jan 19 17:05 2026]   Syllabus and schedule also available in PDF. (Web version will get updated as needed.)

• [Mon Jan 19 17:03 2026]   If you add this class, email Prof. Chang right away. You have to be added to the Google group for this class. Also, submissions directories on GL have to be created for your username.

• [Mon Jan 19 17:00 2026]   Web page up.