Some Harvard colloquia of interest: Mar 19, Apr 2


Subject: Some Harvard colloquia of interest: Mar 19, Apr 2
From: Allyn Dimock (dimock@deas.harvard.edu)
Date: Fri Mar 16 2001 - 13:27:28 EST


Mar 19: Bill Pugh on The semantics of multithreaded Java
Apr 2: David Walker on Type Structure for Low-level Programming Languages

Talks at 4:00PM in Maxwell Dworkin Lab. G125, 40 Oxford St, Cambridge MA
Free ice cream before talks at 3:30PM in Maxwell Dworkin 2'nd floor lounge.
(3'rd floor in American numbering system -- go up central staircase,
look for gobbling students, staff, postdocs & faculty).

-- Allyn

Abstract for Bill Pugh's talk
-----------------------------
Abstract:
Java has integrated multithreading to a far greater extent than most
programming languages. It is also one of the only languages that
specifies and requires safety guarantees for improperly synchronized
programs. It turns out that understanding these issues is far more
subtle and difficult than was previously thought. The existing
specification makes guarantees that prohibit standard and proposed
compiler optimizations; it also omits guarantees that are necessary for
safe execution of much existing code. Some guarantees that are made
(e.g., type safety) raise tricky implementation issues when running
unsynchronized code on SMPs with weak memory models.

In this talk, I will discuss these issues and my proposal for the
semantics of multithreaded Java.

Abstract for David Walker's talk
---------------------------------
Abstract
Low-level programming languages continue to be used to write many of our
critical systems. Moreover, with the proliferation of mobile code,
extensible kernels, servers and databases, research on the design and
implementation of low-level languages that guarantee fundamental safety
and security properties is increasingly important.

In this talk, I will give a brief introduction to a very low-level, but
safe language: Typed Assembly Language (TAL). The instructions of TAL
come directly from Intel's IA32 (Pentium) architecture so, unlike a
system built using the Java virtual machine language, there is no need
to trust a compiler. In addition, the type system of TAL provides a set
of building blocks for describing and enforcing a rich set of
abstractions. As a result, TAL is better suited for compiling a variety
of source language features.

The original version of TAL relied upon a trusted garbage collector for
safe memory management. I will also describe recent extensions to the
type system that permit programmers direct control over memory
management, without sacrificing safety.



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