Talk Description

Asteroid is a modern, multi-paradigm programming language being developed at the University of Rhode Island. This talk is a brief survey of Asteroid which, in particular, examines how the language integrates and supports programming language paradigms such as functional, and object-based programming. One of the interesting features of Asteroid is the support of first-class patterns; we say that Asteroid implements the idiom: Patterns as values and values as patterns. We briefly survey the implications of that idiom in Asteroid. We also discuss how Asteroid is being used in the classroom setting at the University of Rhode Island. Finally, we take a look into the future and discuss near- and long-term development plans. For more information on Asteroid please see the project page here.

Dr. Lutz Hamel is an associate professor of computer science at the University of Rhode Island. He is interested in anything and everything having to do with programming languages. His current research interests are multi-paradigm programming and programming languages that support first-class patterns. His most recent book “Programming Language Implementation: A Practical Introduction with Python” is in the process of being published by Franklin, Beedle and Associates. More information is available at his homepage.