Boston Lisp June 29, 2009

Who:
Eli Barzilay will speak about Implementing Domain Specific Languages with PLT Scheme.

Where:
MIT, Room 34-401B

MIT map:
http://whereis.mit.edu/bin/map?selection=34

Google map:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=50+Vassar+St,+Cambridge,+MA+02139,+USA

Many problems call for domain-specific languages (DSLs) to express them and their solutions; such languages enable a dialogue between domain experts and software developers.

The Lisp and Scheme community has a decades-old tradition of creating and embedding special-purpose languages via macros. Over the last twenty years, we PLT Schemers have continued to develop this technology to the point where making up new languages is so quick and easy that PROGRAMMERS CREATE A LANGUAGE FOR WRITING A SINGLE PROGRAM.

Embedded DSLs are appropriate for a whole range of domains and applications -- in both academia and industry. Notable examples include research languages, teaching languages, and application-specific languages like our text-friendly documentation language.

In this talk Eli will demonstrate how to implement embedded *practical* DSLs in PLT Scheme.

Eli Barzilay is a Researcher in the PLT group at Northeastern University.
He has been a core PLT Scheme developer since 2003, and has used PLT's ability to implement new languages to an extreme. For his Programming Languages undergraduate course, he creates nearly one language per week. In addition to writing new languages, he is involved in helping PLT develop into a multi-lingual environment.

His website is at http://barzilay.org/

Having observed the success of the formula at ILC'2009, we have instituted Lightning Talks at the Boston Lisp Meeting. At every meeting, before the main talk, there are two slots for strictly timed 5-minute talks
followed by 2-minute for questions and answers.

The slots for next Monday are still open. Step up and come talk about your pet project!

Official Website: http://fare.livejournal.com/144600.html