What does the Future of Programming Look Like?

Dave Pearce ( Victoria University of Wellington )

The prevalence of sophisticated (and unsophisticated) cyber-attacks presents a significant threat to modern society. Part of the problem manifests itself in the software underlying the internet, and the myriad of devices on the so-called "Internet of Things". Whilst useful advances in software development have been made over the last decade or more, it is perhaps surprising that the underlying programming languages have not changed significantly. For example, Java is more than twenty years old and, in that time, has undergone only cosmetic improvements. The question is: what should a programming language of the future look like? I hope to give a glimpse of one possible future.

In this talk, I'll employ live coding to demonstrate a new language that represents a step-change improvement over the status quo. This is the Whiley programming language and its accompanying "verifying compiler". The language is focused on ensuring programs meet their specifications. Programming in Whiley feels surprisingly natural and the benefits from including specifications are immediately apparent. The language has been used for the last three years to teach a large undergraduate class about program specification, and we have benefited considerably from this experience.