I'll save the fun bit for last.
First, I'd like to point out that it would be useful to read PLAI with respect to functions and deferred substitution. That will be our next laboratory. I'll be talking about some of this material this week.
Second, for Monday, February 23rd (that's a week from Monday), I'd like it if we could discuss three articles in class. The first, Worse is Better, is followed by a rebuttal from the same author some years later. The third article, Beating the Averages, is about the use of Lisp in a production environment. In all three cases, you are tasked with reading these articles as language designers. The articles are Lisp/Scheme-centric, but I want you to read past that and consider what it means to design a language, and how our decisions effect the spread and utility of that language.
Third, on the topic of languages as interfaces, I thought I'd share this video with you:
What is a language, and what is an interface? David and the others he works with are doing some really neat work in exploring this question. And, for those of you in Junior Sem: this is an example of an absolutely excellent presentation. (Even if you're not in Junior Sem: this is an example of an absolutely excellent presentation.)
Lastly, I hope you are enjoying your Hallmark(tm) Holiday, and I want to remind you that the Gators have both men's and women's basketball games going on this afternoon, as well as a production of Cabaret this evening that you might enjoy.