2 HN users recommended this talk2 months2018–2023score 2
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
Recommended as an approachable introduction to dependent types and a preview of what The Little Typer covers.
David Christiansen gives a Strange Loop 2018 introduction to dependent types, where one language serves for both compile-time and run-time code and programs unite with proofs. It draws on his book The Little Typer.
“Here's an intro to dependent types from David Christiansen” (HN, 2023)
A very mind-blowing and challenging book about Types. The strange loop talk and my own interview of the authors might give some sense of what it's all about. There is also some interesting work online showing how the language used in the book can be created. [this video] [link] [link]
Talk giving a sense of what The Little Typer covers
Type-driven development, meta languages, specs, provably correct code, and automatic code generation were some of the big overlapping themes at Strange Loop [1] this year. All the talks posted online this week [2], and I've posted links to some of the related videos below [3]. It's a good indicator that the time has come for an idea when multiple lines of research and projects from disparate domains begin converging on the same idea from different directions. Several facets of the puzzle I've been working the last few years have converged towards this area so it's good to see that it's not just me, maybe that means we're all on the right track. But as 'pron and those who have been working in this area have pointed out [4], this part of the puzzle is not yet solved, and one of the primary open issues is how to scale it to the system level (beyond provably correct programs to provably correct systems). One of the questions I've been pondering is how can we combine provably correct software specs with hardware specs identified for any given system to find the optimal data structures and algorithms given the constraints of that architecture. Does something similar already exist? What's the best software currently out there for simulating ideal data flow for a given hardware configuration and a given set of system constraints? [1] Strange Loop [link] [2] Strange Loop 2018 talks (80 videos) [link] [3] Related videos... * Vellvm - Verifying the LLVM, by Steve Zdancewic [link] * All
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