Prof. Cimini (University of Massachusetts) is funny but laudably so... Kind of guy who'll write a paper with strange maths just to prove that division by 0 is not allowed.

In his paper on his Language Workbench alternative, the meta-language for Language Engineering, LANG-N-PLAY[1], we come across Prof. M. Cimini's idea of creating a GPL inside of which one can create, import or extend multiple (programming) languages at run-time, and as ordinary host-language first-class citizens [2]. In his usual style.. this time using ML-code not obscure mathematics, he shows weird things such as passing languages around as function arguments, and implementing BNF and language semantics using ML-code that compiles "user-defined languages into the logic programming language lambda-prolog"[2] In a way, this paper also serves as a mini-review on Language Workbenches, and touches on the GLL concept that we recently came across.

REFS:

1. https://github.com/mcimini/lang-n-play

2. Cimini, M. (2018, October). Languages as first-class citizens (vision paper). In Proceedings of the 11th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Software Language Engineering (pp. 65-69).

For a moment, consider that researchers in the SLE field love style... (no, nothing about stylesheets even though it relates ;).

Today, we meet Professor Michael Coblenz

---[Brief Bio]:

Michael Coblenz is an Asst. Prof. in the Computer Science and Engineering department at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD)[1]. He completed his Ph.D. at Carnegie Mellon University, where he was advised by Professors Jonathan Aldrich and Brad A. Myers[2]. His research focuses on **programming languages, software engineering, and human-computer interaction.

Before his academic career, Coblenz worked as a senior software engineer at Apple, Inc., where he contributed to the iWork suite, particularly the Numbers application[2]. He has also been involved in various projects aimed at making programming languages safer and more user-friendly[1].

---[REFS]:

1. https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~mcoblenz/?

2. https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~mcoblenz/assets/pdf/CV.pdf

---[About The Paper]:

So, apart from appealing to the famous Chaka Demus & Pliers 🤭, this very serious language engineering research project presents a powerful pragmatic language design process abbreviated "PLIERS"[1]. Coblenz & team used it to evolve 2 new OOP PLs; Obsidian & Glacier, via mostly user/dev-oriented studies. Many useful ideas in that paper that could help guide innovative research projects beyond just SLE.

---[REFS]:

1. Coblenz, Michael, Gauri Kambhatla, Paulette Koronkevich, Jenna L. Wise, Celeste Barnaby, Joshua Sunshine, Jonathan Aldrich, and Brad A. Myers. "PLIERS: a process that integrates user-centered methods into programming language design." ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI) 28, no. 4 (2021): 1-53. https://doi.org/10.1145/3452379

Glad to see more students and researchers picking interest in our work here 👏

---[About The Paper]:

First, though Prof. Bruno appears as the first author, and with some background interest in models & visual systems [4], perhaps it's more correct to place the burden of the SLE-related science in this paper [2] on his co-author, Levi Lúcio (who has a deeper background in software engineering and has also worked as a software architect [3]).

The paper does make some useful contributions in the form of attempting to express and prove important results concerning re-write systems (of which visual transformation languages such as DSLTrans are a subset); using Graph theory formalisms, however, a lack of thorough development of the mathematical basis of the claims made in the paper imply that this work still needs be taken with a grain of salt despite looking rigorous enough by typical SLE paper standards. Definitions were written in a rush, and (informal) proofs (to formal claims) were left in sketch form.

It still is an interesting paper to read and we'll perhaps help evolve this work further...

---[REFS]:

1. https://www.routledge.com/Resilience-and-Urban-Risk-Management/Serre-Barroca-Laganier/p/book/9780415621472

2. Barroca, Bruno, Levi Lúcio, Vasco Amaral, Roberto Félix, and Vasco Sousa. "Dsltrans: A turing incomplete transformation language." In Software Language Engineering: Third International Conference, SLE 2010, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, October 12-13, 2010, Revised Selected Papers 3, pp. 296-305. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2011. url:https://www.academia.edu/download/90614869/paper_sle2010.pdf


3. https://www.linkedin.com/in/levi-l%C3%BAcio-b3ab433

4. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bruno-Barroca-2

Memories of Joseph W. Lutalo with classmates (L-R; Ssegawa, Stephen, Maurice, and JWL himself) back in their undergraduate days at Makerere.. circa 2009. That's one example of a very successful and productive study group we formed to see us to the finals with flying colours.. 🤞😁