Find a problem from code that you have worked on that can be improved by the use of programming language principles.

• work/internship code: get permissions, abstract problem if needed
• school: abstract problem if needed
• home/personal: abstract problem if needed

Ways to find a topic.

• Look for code that is messy or not organized.
• Look for code with redundancy and copy-update issues

Note: Abstraction using constants, procedures/functions, modules,, classes is not innovative. Find something more substantive.

The purpose of data structures and algorithms is to find faster machine efficient methods.

The purpose of the HCI (Human Computer Interface) field is to understand and improve the interactions between the computer (software) and the end user.

The purpose of programming languages is to improve the interactions of the programmer with the software creation process. This involves grammar and syntax, tree processing, processing structured and unstructured text (e.g. programs, general text), and programs that write programs, etc.

Language ideas include, but are not limited to, the following.

• non-trivial regular expression pattern matching
• function parameters for abstraction
• lambda closures
• trees and tree processing
• grammar and parsing methods
• string rewriting (e.g., using environments, etc.)

It is best to use the language in which the code was written. This can vary from problem to problem.

---