Presentation: "Scala: Bringing Future Languages to the JVM"

Time: Monday 14:30 - 15:30

Location: Conference Hall 3

Abstract:

The Java world's host of useful libraries inspires many people to write their code in Java. This is not strictly necessary.

Scala is a programming language that gives you easy access to Java libraries without having to write in Java. Since Scala does not have to be source-compatible with Java -- only bytecode-compatible -- it is free to offer a number of simplifications and, we think, improvements over Java.

Among these are: a unified object model, state of the art mixins (including "interfaces with code"), closures, class-wide visible constructor parameters, and pattern matching.

In addition, the group follows the "growing a language" approach and thus includes features that should allow the larger Scala community to enhance the language themselves.

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Lex Spoon, EPFL/IBM

 Lex  Spoon

Lex Spoon divides his time between two posts: he works at EPFL in Switzerland on the Scala team, and at IBM Research in New York on X10.

He thus has a lot of recent experience with advanced programming languages that play nice with the existing Java world.

His research spans a number of areas within programming languages, including data-flow analysis, component distribution, safe software evolution, and verification of domain-specific properties.