CSCI 334: Principles of Programming Languages, Spring 2022

Prompt for “Aesthetics and Programming”

Due on Wednesday, February 9 by 10pm

Read the course packet’s Preface and the paper “Aesthetics and Programming” by Peter Molzberger. Both can be found in the course packet.

Do you visualize the code you write? In what way? What do you see?
What programming languages do you know? If you visualize your code, do you see it differently in different languages? To jog your memory, it sometimes helps to look back at an old programming assignment.
Have you ever experienced the state described in section 3 of the paper? Whether you have or have not, do you associate programming with positive or negative feelings?

Length

Your response should be short: at least 200 words and no more than 400 word total.

Obtaining the Reading Responses Repository

Find your repository. The name is based on your github username, and is of the form:

https://github.com/williams-cs/cs334_reading_responses-<your user name>

For example, mine would be at https://github.com/williams-cs/cs334_reading_responses-dbarowy

Once you find it, clone it the usual way. For example, I would do:

$ git clone git@github.com:williams-cs/cs334_reading_responses-dbarowy.git

If you have trouble with this step, please let me know.

Submission Instructions

Commit your response to your short responses repository. You must commit both your .tex source file and your generated .pdf. You are required to use LaTeX to typeset your response.

FILES MUST BE NAMED readingn.pdf AS BELOW.

If you do not have LaTeX (pronounced “lah-teck”), you will need to install it before proceeding. See the mini-HOWTO linked below.

Download the reading response template or use the template already present in your reading responses repository (rr01/reading01.tex). If you use the one already present in your repository, skip to step 5.
Unzip the template:
```
$ unzip latex-template.zip
```
cd into the template directory.
```
$ cd latex-template
```
Rename the file to match your assignment. E.g., since this is reading 1,
```
$ mv reading0.tex reading01.tex
```
Run pdflatex to produce a PDF from the template.
```
$ pdflatex reading01.tex
```
Now edit reading01.tex and put in the text you actually want. Be sure to change your name, the reading number, and the text. As with any new programming language, start small. Change only one thing at a time, and run pdflatex after every little change until you get the hang of it.
Run pdflatex again to produce a new PDF. If pdflatex complains that your code is malformed, you can type X and then press the Enter key to exit.
Commit reading01.tex, reading01.pdf, and any supporting files that you use (e.g., images) to your repository. Please be sure to put the reading in the correct folder (e.g., rr01).

How to use LaTeX

You can find a LaTeX mini-HOWTO here. As with any real programming language, there are numerous additional features you can learn, and LaTeX is capable of producing beautiful output in the hands of a pro.