[Pl-seminar] Presentation by Adam Chlipala on Ur/Web on Wednesday, Jan. 11, from 6-8pm at Harvard

[Alley Stoughton]

The Functional Programming Works! Meetup group is having its first Meetup, on Wednesday, Jan. 11, from 6-8 p.m. in Room G-135 of Harvard University's Maxwell Dworkin Building.

The Meetup will feature a presentation on Ur/Web - a domain-specific functional language for web applications - by Adam Chlipala from MIT CSAIL, followed by refreshments and time for networking.

Companies/institutions with openings for functional programmers are encouraged to staff information tables during the networking period. Please contact Alley Stoughton (Alley.Stoughton at gmail.com) if you plan to do so.

See http://www.meetup.com/Functional-Programming-Works/events/44207472/ for directions and more information.  It would be helpful if people could RSVP via this page if they are attending.

Speaker: Adam Chlipala, MIT CSAIL

Title: Ur/Web: A Domain-Specific Functional Language for Web Applications

Abstract: Around 2006, I started working on building the ultimate programming language for modern Web applications. Today, there is an open source implementation of Ur/Web, which is starting to be used in a few non-toy projects, and I hope more will follow!

Ur/Web is inspired by languages like ML, Haskell, and Agda. There is tight integration of all aspects of Web apps; none of the many languages and protocols involved in a typical application is represented using strings, sockets, etc. Many participants will be familiar with similar approaches in languages like Links and libraries like LINQ. Ur/Web is distinguished from these by a number of novel features. First, the expressive type system allows static checking of code generators, like those popularized by Ruby on Rails scaffolding. Second, the first-class treatment of bits of Web apps is coupled with modularity features to allow true encapsulation of resources like database tables and GUI widgets. There is also an experimental static analysis for conformance to declarative security policies, which I may say a bit about, time permitting.

I plan to spend most of the time on demos of apps with source code, and this will be the most fun if everyone questions me aggressively about every feature I demonstrate. :)

P.S.: I am interested in supporting commercial development using Ur/Web. Let me know if you'd like to use it in a start-up, or if you'd be interested in doing contract work writing Ur/Web programs!

Speaker bio: Adam Chlipala is an assistant professor in MIT CSAIL. He finished his PhD at Berkeley in 2007. Broadly speaking, his research applies formal logic in creating better tools for producing and analyzing software. He spends a lot of time proving theorems with the Coq proof assistant, related to the verification of software infrastructure like compilers and runtime systems. He also has longstanding interests in Web programming and fancy type systems, which come together in the design of the Ur/Web language. Adam is devoting some time to commercial consulting related to real-world uses of Ur/Web.

http://adam.chlipala.net/
http://www.impredicative.com/ur/