[PL-sem-jr] PL Jr Talk Monday 12:00-2:00 WVH166

[Vincent St-Amour]

Aaron - Mathematical foundations of programming languages

This talk will be a prerequisite-free tutorial on the major areas of
mathematics directly relevant to PL:

 - Set theory: what math is made of

 - Fixpoint theory: what recursion is made of

 - Order theory: knowing your limits

 - Universal algebra: how to free your algebras

 - Mathematical logic: proof, truth, and the language in between

 - Category theory: math with data abstraction

While the treatment will necessarily be brisk and shallow, I hope that
by the end none of these areas will seen scary or obscure.  And on a
technical level, I hope to at least convey all the mechanics needed to
formalize recursive inference rules -- the bread and butter of
mathematical PL research.