設計程式語言用的語言

這週二系上有場演講，談設計程式語言 （Programming Language Programming）。有同學問我，這個跟HSA有什麼關係呢？當然有。有用過OpenCL的同學知道，OpenCL不大像一般人會想學愛用的語言，有些地方為了對應到處理機的運作和使用方式，搞得頗複雜的。因此，針對特殊應用領域，設計專用語言，再將之轉為OpenCL，或許是一個不錯的想法。但是設計語言和轉換的工作貌似很複雜的工程，能否很找到適當的工具來幫忙完成?聽聽這場演講，或許有所幫助。除了 HSA和OpenCL之外，針對各種IoT, Cloud, Big Data應用領域設計程式設計語言，也是可以嘗試的研究，但是要做到這些，必須有該應用領域的專業素養 -- 成為該領域專家，或是成為懂得用工具與專家合作的人，而我們實驗室的取向是後者。

Title: Racket: a programming language programming language
Date: 2014-7-29 (Tuesday) 10:30am~11:50am
Location: R210
Speaker: Prof. Robby Findler, Northwestern University & PLT
Hosted by: Prof. Jane Hsu
Abstract:

Building new programming languages from whole cloth is a difficult proposition at best. Macro system provide an alternative; they support the construction of new programming languages from existing pieces, while still providing the flexibility to radically change the syntax and semantics of the programming language.
In this talk, I will give a high-level overview of the myriad of programming languages that Racket supports by looking at some simple example programs, running them and discussing their results. The talk will also give an overview of the research area of macros, showing what can be accomplished with them and introducing some of the associated technical challenges and their solutions.

Biography:

Robby Findler is currently an Associate Professor at Northwestern University; he received his PhD from Rice University in 2002. His research area is programming languages and he focuses on programming environments, software contracts, and tools for modeling operational semantics. He maintains DrRacket, the program development environment for the programming language Racket and he co-authored the book _How to Design Programs_, a textbook for teaching introductory programming.