Lambda the Ultimate

I am a graduate student that is interested in logic and theoretical computer science. I have a pretty good background in modern algebra, as well as a beginning background in logic, category theory, and algebraic topology. I am looking to apply these things to problems in computing science for a master's thesis.

In short, I'm looking for open problems that would be amenable for the level of master's work. I've been studying these topics on my own, with the aid of excellent books, but it would be good to have something to focus on "getting to", I suppose.

I think my development is of some interest:

find with XPath over file system
http://uucode.com/texts/xfind/index.html

The standard UNIX utility find now supports XPath:

$ ./find -xpath '/bin/*[@size > /bin/bash/@size]'
/bin/ipv6calc
/bin/rpm

XML can be considered as an external representation of in-memory tree-like structures, and the XML-related standards -- as methods of processing such data. I'm working on a reusable XPath implementation, and the new find is a reference implementation for adding XPath into the C programs.

I'm currently taking a PL design class which uses Norman Ramsey's draft textbook, which involves a lot of interpreters written in Standard ML. I can get ML implementations for my desktop machines, but I'd like to find one I could compile for my Zaurus (Linux-based handheld). The catch is that the existing compilers I can find either (a) generate machine code (and don't support ARM) or (b) at build time, require smlnj (which doesn't support ARM).

Moscow ML might be an exception, but camlrun keeps segving during the build process. So, I was hoping that there might be something more portable out there; and I figured this was a good place to ask. Anybody know?

Linearly Used Continuations

Continuations are the raw material of control. They can
be used to explain a wide variety of control behaviours,
including calling/returning (procedures), raising/handling
(exceptions), labelled jumping (goto statements), process
switching (coroutines), and backtracking. In the most powerful
form, represented by callcc and its cousins, the programmer
can manipulate continuations as first-class values.
It can be argued, however, that unrestricted use of continuations,
especially when combined with state, can give rise
to intractable higher-order spaghetti code. Hence, few languages
give the user direct, reified, access to continuations;
rather, they are "behind the scenes", implementing other
control behaviours, and their use is highly stylised.
But just what is this stylised usage? Remarkably, as we
will argue, in many forms of control, continuations are used
linearly. This is true for a wide range of effects, including
procedure call and return, exceptions, goto statements, and
coroutines.

I feel this is related to the The pi-Calculus in Direct Style, in the sense that it analyzes cases when you do not want full power of first-class continuations or CPS. This is just a vague feeling and not a scientific remark. Therefore, it's not a story, either :-)

The first issue of The Monad.Reader is out. We'd like to hear your feedback.

It is with deep sadness that I have learned of the passing of one of the greatest minds of our age.

On February 26th, 2005 Jef Raskin died leaving behind a loving family and a legacy of creativity that will serve as an endowment from which we shall all continue to benefit in the years ahead.

Jef is perhaps best know as the Father of the Macintosh, although his work has long since moved beyond it with the founding of The Raskin Center for Humane Interfaces which is developing a quite novel alternative to today's desktop systems.

Readers of Lambda the Ultimate will find his observations on "More Humane Programming Language Environments" in his magna opus, The Humane Interface to be of particular interest.

I only knew Jef briefly, having met him at MacWorld Boston last summer. He was truly a visionary and his writing and email correspondence contained many valuable pointers and insights that shall serve as an inspiration in my personal research and in the ongoing work of The Institute for End User Computing, Inc. for years to come.

All of us at The IEUC wish Jef's family comfort in this difficult time and we wish The Raskin Center for Humane Interfaces a glowing future.

On OSNews, there is a link to a paper describing the implementation of Lua5.0 which among several changes switched from a stack-based VM to a register based and got a significant improvement in performances.

www.stepanovpapers.com is a collection of Alex Stepanov's papers, class notes, and source code, covering generic programming and other topics. This may be of interest to those wanting to understand how the programming style exhibited by the C++ Standard Template Library evolved. Credit goes to Mat Marcus for obtaining the domain name and ISP account, and to Dave Musser, Meng Lee, Jim Dehnert, Jeremy Siek, Mat Marcus, and Alex Stepanov for scrounging through their files to find copies of the material.

This is perhaps a bit of a newbie question, but since I'm only just now getting interested in reading academic papers and such relating to programming languages, I was wondering how I find them. Frequently I see claims such as "XYZ is well discussed in the literature" but I'm not actually sure how to go about finding this literature. Are there online sources where new papers are frequently listed for, say, programming language or other CS topics?

Spam message deleted.

-- Ehud