[Colloq] PhD Thesis Defense, David Herman - April 30

[Rachel Kalweit]

The College of Computer and Information Science Presents:

PhD Thesis Defense by:

Student: David Herman

Date: Friday, April 30
Time: 11:00am
Location: 366 West Village H

Title: A Theory of Typed Hygienic Macros

Abstract:
We provide a semantics for a language of hygienic macros with a non-trivial theory. Unlike Scheme, where programs must be macro-expanded to be analyzed, our semantics admits reasoning about programs as they appear to programmers. Our contributions include a semantics of hygienic macro expansion, a formal definition of alpha-equivalence that is independent of expansion, and a proof that expansion preserves alpha-equivalence. The key technical component of our language is a type system similar to Culpepper’s "shape types," but with the novel contribution of binding signature types, which specify the bindings and scope of a macro's arguments.

Committee:

Mitch Wand (advisor)
Olin Shivers
Will Clinger 
Oleg Kiselyov (external; Fleet Numerical Meterology and Oceanography Center (FNMOC)).