[plt-scheme] EOPL pre-requisites?

On 6/20/07, Prabhakar Ragde <plragde at uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>
> Do you plan to expand the coverage of garbage collection in PLAI?

I'm still torn on how to expand it.  I want to avoid rewriting the
heart of Paul Wilson's survey, because...well, because people can just
as well read that survey.  Of course, a more implementation-based
rewrite is an alternative.  But I'm torn because I really like
*assigning* the implementation rather than just showing it.  (This is
the same reason I've included no code on implementing type
checkers...another area in which PLAI goes too far in not including
code, I've concluded.)

> What's there currently looks like a stub to me, and I gather
> students in your course learn the material through assignments.

Yes.  And the structure of that assignment would be the basis for the
implementation code that I show in the book.

For those who don't know the assignment Prabhakar is referring to, the
key to learning GC is doing this assignment:

http://www.cs.brown.edu/courses/cs173/2005/Assignments/garbage-collection.shtml

Hopefully it's clear why this is such a cool thing to do.  If it's
not, ask!

Credit for this idea, which I personally think is a truly amazing
improvement over how GC has ever been taught before, goes to Greg
Cooper (of FrTime fame).  And of course it would be impossible to do
this without the great PLT Scheme module system -- in *all* its glory.

Shriram