[Pl-seminar] Semantics Seminar Schedule

[Mitchell Wand]

NU Programming Languages Seminar
Wednesday, January 22, 2003
206 Egan  Hall, Northeastern University
    (building 60 on http://www.campusmap.neu.edu/)  
1030-1230

The Java Syntactic Extender

Jonathan Bachrach, MIT AI Lab

The ability to extend a programming language with new constructs is a
valuable tool. With it, system designers can grow a language towards
their problem domain, enhance productivity and ease maintenance. We
present an extension to the Java language, called the Java Syntactic
Extender (JSE), that allows Java programmers to define new syntactic
constructs. The design is based on the Dylan macro system (e.g.,
rule-based pattern matching and hygiene), but exploits Java's
compilation model to offer a full procedural macro engine. In other
words, syntax expanders may be implemented in, and so use all the
facilities of, the full Java language. This talk will include
motivating examples, an implementation overview, and future
challenges. The described system is implemented and working as a Java
preprocessor.

Joint work with Keith Playford of Functional Objects, Inc.

Bio: Jonathan Bachrach is a research scientist at the MIT AI Lab.
Upcoming presentations:

1/29/03 Mitch Wand: Representing Failure

--Mitch