Abstract: This course discovers the fundamentals of programming languages by tracing the development of the field. We will carefully read a sequence of foundational papers in the field of computer science. The programming projects will follow from the papers that we read.

Prerequisites: This is an upper-level course in programming languages, and assumes a familiarity with the principles of programming languages, including but not limited to notions of scope, calling convention, evaluation rules, compound data, and basic typing.

Additionally, students are assumed to have a basic understanding of simple mathematics, including the basics of set theory, very simple algebra, and some experience with proofs and basic mathematical rigor.

Finally, it requires curiosity, and self-driven exploration.