[Pl-seminar] Semantics Seminar Schedule

[Mitchell Wand]

NU Programming Languages Seminar
Wednesday, 3/28/07
11:45am-1:30pm
Room 366 WVH (http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/wand/directions.html)

Structure shyness in the XML world

Ralf Lämmel, 
Microsoft Corp. Data Programmability Team

Abstract:

XML programming involves idioms for expressing "structure shyness"
such as the descendant axis of XPath or the default templates of
XSLT. We initiate a discussion of the relationships between such XML
idioms and generic functional programming, while focusing on the
(Haskell-based) "Scrap your boilerplate" style of generic programming
(SYB). In particular: (i) we compare SYB style and XSLT style of
programming; (ii) we approximate XPath in SYB; (iii) we illustrate the
expressivity of SYB, when compared to a DSL like XPath; (iv) we
explain SYB-style transformations as an alternative to destructive
updates (a la XQuery); (v) we illustrate the use the Haskell type
system for rejecting certain, trivial traversal behaviors; (vi) we
popularize recent work by Cunha and Visser on an algebraic style of
traversal optimization; (vii) on our way, we demo untyped and typed
XML programming in LINQ / C# 3.0, thereby showing how more generic
functional programming power may get into the mainstream.

Links to relevant papers:
- POPL 2007: http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1190215.1190240
- PLAN'X 2007: http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ralf/planx07/
- XML 2006: http://2006.xmlconference.org/programme/presentations/49.html
- XML 2006: http://2006.xmlconference.org/programme/presentations/91.html

Bio of the speaker:

Dr. Ralf Lämmel is affiliated with Microsoft Corp. He serves on a
research and development position with focus on XML technologies. In
the years 2001--2004, Ralf Lämmel served on a permanent faculty
position, at the Free University of Amsterdam, in the Software
Engineering department, and he was also affiliated with the Dutch
Center for Mathematics and Computer Science (CWI) -- starting in
1999. His research interests include program transformation,
programming languages, generic language technology, grammarware
engineering, and automated software engineering. Ralf Lämmel has
published approximately 60 peer-reviewed papers on these subjects, and
he has participated in numerous national and international
collaborations and funded research projects on these subjects. In
academic and industrial projects, Ralf Lämmel has designed,
implemented, and deployed software development tools, migration tools
and application generators. Ralf Lämmel received his PhD in computer
science from the University of Rostock (Germany, 1999). Ralf Lämmel
participates in various international conferences as program committee
member and as organizer. For instance, he has recently (co-) organized
a Dagstuhl seminar on program transformation, and an international
summer school on generative and transformational techniques.

Upcoming Events:

# 4/25 Dimitris Vardoulakis on Orc
# Don't you want to speak at pl-seminar?

--Mitch