Spring School on
Generic and Indexed Programming

Wadham College, Oxford
22nd to 26th March 2010

New: Papers and slides

Topic

Generic programming is about making programs more widely applicable via exotic kinds of parametrization—not just along the dimensions of values or of types, but of things such as the shape of data, algebraic structures, strategies, computational paradigms, and so on. Indexed programming is a lightweight form of dependently typed programming, constraining flexibility by allowing one to state and check relationships between parameters: that the shapes of two arguments agree, that an encoded value matches to some type, that values transmitted along a channel conforms to some protocol, and so on.

The two forces of genericity and indexing balance each other nicely, simultaneously promoting and controlling generality. The EPSRC-funded Generic and Indexed Programming project at Oxford has been exploring their interaction over the period 2006–2010; this school is the closing activity of the project.

Lecturers

Six lecturers from the Programming Languages community, each an acknowledged expert in their specialism, will cover various aspects of generic and indexed programming. Each will give about four hours' lectures, distributed throughout the week.

Prerequisites

The school is aimed at doctoral students in programming languages and related areas; however, researchers and practitioners will be very welcome, as will strong masters students with the support of a supervisor. It will be assumed that participants have a good understanding of typed functional programming, as in Haskell or O'Caml.

Dates

Venue

Lectures will be held and accommodation provided in Wadham College in the centre of Oxford. The college celebrates its 400th anniversary in 2010; notable past members include Sir Christopher Wren, the founder of the Royal Society, and notable present ones Marcus du Sautoy, the mathematician and TV presenter.

Costs

Costs will be kept low, thanks to support from EPSRC. There will be a nominal registration fee of £75, and B&B accommodation in college will be £55 per night.

Registration

Registration is now closed, but the instructions were:
To register, you need to make a payment at our online shop. You will receive an order code as confirmation; enter that code on the registration form, along with all the other data, and send the completed form to us. (You can pay by cheque in sterling too, if necessary, but credit card is preferred.)

Timetable

The lectures will take place in the Okinaga Room, in the south-east corner of Wadham College. The timetable of lectures is as follows:
Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri
0900-1030 RH RH SPJ SW OK
1100-1230 JS OK RH RH SW
1400-1530 JS SPJ JNF JNF
1600-1730 JS JNF SW OK
There will be a drinks reception (1830) and banquet (1915) on the Wednesday evening, with the college bar open afterwards.

Materials

Foster photo
Hinze photo
Kiselyov photo
Peyton Jones photo
Siek photo
Weirich photo

Further Information

For further information, please contact the organizers.
Jeremy Gibbons, March 2010.