Programming Language Use

The course homeworks will be programmed in Pyret, which is a reasonably large language with many libraries, some of which reproduce functionality (like basic data structures) that we are asking you to create in this course. This can lead to some confusion about what you are and aren’t allowed to use from the language. Each assignment provides information about this when necessary, but in general, the following rules apply:

• You can always use the computational core of the language: basic constants, functions, and composition.

• You can always construct your own new data definitions, unless explicitly stated otherwise.

• You are allowed to use builtin functions for the following datatypes unless explicitly stated otherwise:

  • Numbers (functions such as num-abs, num-max)

  • Strings (functions such as string-to-number, string-length)

  • Booleans (functions such as not)

• You are allowed to use the following libraries unless explicitly stated otherwise:

  • lists

  • sets

  • tables

  • option

  • either

• You should not use any other built-in functions or libraries unless an assignment explicitly permits you to. When in doubt, ask.

• You may not use variables (var) or mutate objects (!) unless explicitly permitted to by an assignment.