Are you interested in the foundations of programming languages and would like to delve a bit deeper? Then “Lambda Club” may be of interest.<\/p>\n
Lambda Club is an informal collection of people at the University of
\nKent who enjoy and are interested in functional programming and research topics in programming languages, including both students and staff.<\/p>\n
In the past, Lambda Club has met sporadically during term time for an
\nhour, with talks from staff and students including demos, tutorials,
\npair programming challenges, or mini lectures on a particular
\nprogramming language topics. This term, I have planned a series of
\nshort, informal lectures on the lambda calculus and its use as a
\nfoundation for programming. My current plan digs into both the theory
\nand practical concerns:<\/p>\n
Programme: creating your own language with the lambda calculus as the core.<\/p>\n
Session 1: Intro to the syntax and concepts of the lambda calculus,
\nincluding operational semantics.
\nSession 2: A first implementation: parsing, printing, and interpreting the lambda calculus (written in Haskell)
\nSession 3: More on the implementation of a simple language based on
\nthe Lambda Calculus
\nSession 4: Formally defining a type system via the simply-typed lambda calculus
\nSession 5: Algorithmically defining a type system: type checking and
\ntype inference
\nSession 6: Recursion and strong normalisation theorems
\nSession 7: Extending our implementation with some more features
\nSession 8: The Curry-Howard correspondence (types vs. logic)
\nSession 9: Polymorphism (System F)
\nSession 10: Implementing polymorphic types (Hindley-Milner algorithm
\nand related).<\/p>\n
Lambda Club will meet on Wednesday at 2pm, usually in SW101. If you
\nwould like to join, please sign up to the mailing list here:<\/p>\n