In a break with tradition, we're not going to have a Christmas social this December, but instead, Jon Chesterfield is going to give a talk on "The Implementation"
Synopsis
Between the code and the user lies the implementation. Languages, compilers, virtual machines, drivers, instruction sets. This can be viewed as a black box, full of magic and wonder, or as software. The speaker prefers the latter.
This will be an introduction to how people implement said black box, from text file to the silicon. The examples will be drawn from the C and lisp families, with reference to LLVM and an unreleased interpreter.
I started working on toolchains to understand why they didn't do what I expected. I'm still working in the field because I want a better language (for an unusual definition of better). I would like to share what I have learned along the way.
Bio
Jon Chesterfield is a toolchain engineer based in Bristol. He crossed over from mechanical engineering with aspirations of writing better numerical models for physics simulations. That's now a distant memory as days are spent writing tools for other developers and evenings writing tools for himself.