The Newsgroup: cs.337 

Announcements, clarifications, etc. will be posted. You're responsible for checking it regularly.

The department news server is news.cs.northwestern.edu. You will have to use your CS login and password to access the news group. If you do not have one, please contact support or me.

Important Information

• Office Hours: Thursday after class or by appointment
• Homework
• Lectures - some course notes
• Instead of a syllabus
• Submission guidelines

The course description sounds like a philosophy course and many students think that it is a walk in the park. This is a HARD class. All the people who took it agree. Please read the following:

There is a final paper. It is roughly 30 pages long (double spaced). It is NOT a research paper. Rather, you will have to build a mini theory of a domain.

There is a STIFF late policy.

The programming language used in this course is LISP. There are no exceptions to this rule. You have to learn it. Now. You need it for the first assignment. (We know this is unfair to the people with no experience with Lisp or Scheme, but it is the only way to make sure everyone is on the same page.) Every CS sophomore should be able to learn the basics of any programming language in a day. Once you start, it is not that hard. Check the links below.

Any books on Lisp will help, but we recommend the one below.  If you know Lisp, you don't need the book. You can also use Introduction and Tutorial for Common Lisp.

You can choose any interpreter, but we strongly recommend Allegro CL Lite. If there are any Mac users, contact us.

• ANSI Common Lisp book
• Lisp (from C25)
• What it is
• Where to get it

I feel stupid for having to say this, but I get too many unrealistic expectations:

The TA is NOT responsible for making the Lisp interpreter run on your machine. This is an upper level CS course, and you are supposed to be able to handle minor technical problems. Of course, I'll try to help if I am available.