Abstract

Borja Moreno Fernandez (1) and Artem Glebov (2) will be practising their MPhil project talks.

(1) An investigation of the Join Calculus Abstract Machine

Abstract: The Join Calculus Abstract Machine (JCAM) is a parallel, non-deterministic, stack-based abstract machine based on the Join Calculus. It aims to become a universal intermediate representation (IR) for parallel programming languages. In this talk I first introduce the Join Calculus, and then present the investigation of the JCAM that I am performing. The investigation includes the implementation of a JCAM interpreter, an analysis of the suitability of the JCAM as an IR, and optimizations of JCAM code.

(2) Ownership in Object-Oriented Languages

Abstract: Ownership types make bad programs harder to write. They prevent unintended aliasing and help guard the objects’ invariants – all using a clear and elegant syntax with various tools out there to help automate the tedious bit. Still, despite the progress made in the area for more than a decade, the idea seems to be surprisingly far from acceptance by the developers’ community. Does this mean ownership types are technically immature? Is it just a technical problem or do we miss some important points in our reasoning about how programmers do their job? Has the gap between research and practice gone too wide? In this work, I examine recent advances in the area with the aim of identifying major obstacles that separate ownership types from adoption, and suggest steps that will help overcome those obstacles.