[Colloq] PhD Thesis Proposal - Ryan Culpepper

[Rachel Kalweit]

College of Computer and Information Science 

PhD Thesis Proposal: 
Ryan Culpepper 

Thesis Title: Supporting Macros 


Tuesday, December 11, 2007 
1:30pm 
366 West Village H 


Abstract: The Scheme family of programming languages supports the introduction of new forms of expressions and definitions via macros, which encapsulate syntactic structure just like functions encapsulate 

computation.  Programmers use these syntactic abstractions to adapt the programming language to suit the problems that they work on. The degree of adaptation ranges from the abbreviation of common patterns to the implementation of entire (little) languages. 

Unfortunately, no Scheme platform supports macro development well. Macros are like a different language superimposed on Scheme, and the machinery that supports writing robust Scheme programs does not support writing good macros.  In my work I address two problems facing macro writers: first, the expansion process is complex and opaque; and second, the existing notation for writing macros makes crafting clear and robust macros hard. 

I propose solutions for these two problems with macros. To clarify the expansion process, I propose a specialized debugger for macros. I have implemented such a debugger and intend to validate its correctness. To help programmers write clear, robust macros, I propose to develop a specialized language for describing the syntactic structure of macros. 

Committee: 
- Matthias Felleisen (advisor) 
- Mitch Wand 
- Olin Shivers 
- Matthew Flatt ( University of Utah )