Programming Language Research for Technical and Social Good: What PL Can Do for Good?
summary
Group builds executable, mechanized language specifications and uses them to auto-generate parsers, interpreters, and test suites; JavaScript DSL ESmeta compiles 96% of ECMAScript prose automatically, needed 4% manual fixes, then passed the official test suite 100%, and uncovered 27 spec bugs plus 44 engine bugs; WebAssembly DSL Spectac produces LaTeX, interpreters, and tests and won community adoption (15 strongly in favor, 17 in favor, 1 neutral); work is incremental, reproducible, and required multi‑year commitment.
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chapters (13)
- 0:00Introduction
- 1:25Talk motivation
- 3:10Mechanized language specs
- 9:59JavaScript ES Meta
- 11:23WebAssembly Spectac
- 14:17Language demands lessons
- 28:14Bugs in specs
- 36:24Language community collaboration
- 41:22Commitment for impact
- 45:21PL for social good
- 47:50KAIST diversity efforts
- 49:59Closing
- 50:19Q&A
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