Colloquium Details
Introduction to Programming with Shift and Reset
| Author: | Kenichi Asai Ochanomizu University, Japan |
|---|---|
| Date: | October 27, 2011 |
| Time: | 15:30 |
| Location: | 220 Deschutes |
| Host: | Zena Ariola |
Abstract
The concept of continuations arises naturally in programming: a conditional branch selects a continuation from the two possible futures; raising an exception discards a part of the continuation; a tail-call or 'goto' continues with the continuation. Although continuations are implicitly manipulated in every language, manipulating them explicitly as first-class objects is rarely used because of the perceived difficulty.
In this talk, I give a gentle introduction to continuations and a taste of programming with first-class delimited continuations using the control operators shift and reset. Assuming no prior knowledge on continuations, I explain how to write simple co-routines and non-deterministic searches using shift and reset.
Biography
Kenichi Asai is an associate professor in the department of computer science, Ochanomizu University, a women's university located in Tokyo. Before coming to Ochanomizu University, he has been a research associate in the University of Tokyo, a researcher in JST corporation, and a visiting associate professor in the Northeastern University. He is interested in various aspects of programming languages, in particular, delimited continuations, partial evaluation, and reflection. (Ph.D., University of Tokyo in 1997)