CSCI 5535 Project Page

Deadlines

Proposal due: 11/10/99, 9:00 a.m.
Project due: 12/6/99, 9:00 a.m.

Guidelines

I want to give you the maximum flexibility in picking a project that is interesting to you.  The only requirement is that it must be relevant to the theme of the class (i.e., programming languages, concepts, and implementation).

The project will have two stages.  In the first stage, you will do some research and decide what you wish to do for your project.  You also need to form a team with 3 other students.  At the end of this stage, your team must submit a 3 page(maximum) description of your project (proposal).   The proposal must include the following information:

  1. The members in your team.
  2. The problem you are trying to address in your project.  You should describe the problem in detail.  At the end of this section, you should give a concise one line statement that describes your project.  You should also indicate the responsibilities of your team members both in terms of doing the work and doing the final write up.
  3. A list of the sources (books, papers, and software) you intend to use in this project.  This does not, of course, prevent you for using additional sources in your project.
  4. What you expect to achieve at the end of the project.
In the second stage, you will conduct the research for your project and write it up in a document.  The document must include the following:
  1. Your graded proposal must be stapled to the beginning of your project.
  2. A detailed description of the research you conducted.  If you did a literature survey, then the description must include a description of the main ideas in the literature along with a summary and comparision of the ideas.  If you did a language design, then the description must include a detailed description and justification of your design and comparision of your ideas to prior work. If you did an implementation project, then the description must include a description of the code you wrote and the experiements you conducted.  The actual code must be attached in the appendix (if the code is big, I will accept an email submission of the code).
  3. Indicate whether or not you feel the project was a success.  In other words, were you able to achieve what you were expecting at the time you wrote your proposal.

Project ideas

I'd like your project to fit in one of three categories: literature survey, language design, and implementation.  You are not limited to the ideas presented below.  As mentioned above, you may choose something different from these ideas as long as it is relevant to the class.
 

Literature Survey

Pick an area that interests you, read many papers in the area, and summarize and critique them.

Language Design

Identify weaknesses in existing languages and propose changes (or a new language altogether) that addresses the weaknesses.

Implementation

Implement an application in multiple languages and write about your experiences.  OR
Write tool(s) to analyze programs and use them to discover interesting properties of programs written in one or more languages.