Leslie Lamport @ TUHH

Leslie Lamport an der TUHH (20. Okt, 17 Uhr) Speaker: Dr. Leslie Lamport, Microsoft Research
Title: The PlusCal Algorithm Language

Time: Oct. 20, 17:00
Location: Dietze Auditorium (H.016)

Abstract:
Algorithms are different from programs and should not be described with programming languages. For example, algorithms are usually best described in terms of mathematical objects like sets and graphs instead of the primitive objects like bytes and integers provided by programming languages. Until now, the only simple alternative to programming languages has been pseudo-code.

PlusCal is an algorithm language based on TLA+. A PlusCal algorithm is automatically translated to a TLA+ specification that can be checked with the TLC model checker or reasoned about formally. (No knowledge of TLA+ is assumed.)

PlusCal makes pseudo-code obsolete.



Bio:
Dr. Leslie Lamport is a prinicipal researcher at Microsoft Research in
Mountain View, California since 2001. Prior to joining Microsoft, he held positions at Mitre, Marlboro College, SRI International, DEC, and Compaq. Dr. Lamport received a number of prestigious awards, including the IEEE Emanuel R. Piore Award for seminal contributions to the theory and practice of concurrent programming and fault
tolerant computing in 2004 and the IEEE John von Neumann Medal for pioneering work in distributed and concurrent algorithms in 2008. He holds five honorary doctorates, from the universities of Rennes, Kiel, Lausanne, Lugano, and Nancy. He is elected member of the National Academy of Engineering as well as the National Academy of Science, and, among other contributions, also known as the author of LaTeX, a widely used document preparation system.