There is a talk coming up Tuesday June 22 at 4:30pm. It is in MC2066. Light refreshments will be supplied.

The title is: Compiling To Combinators

Abstract: Number theory was thought to be mathematically appealing but practically useless until the RSA encryption algorithm demonstrated its considerable utility. I'll outline how combinatory logic (dating back to 1920) has a similarly unexpected application to efficient and effective compilation, which directly catalyzed the development of lazy functional programming languages such as Haskell. The talk is self-contained; no prior knowledge of functional programming is necessary.