I had a very enlightening lunch this Tuesday at Pembroke College with Simon Peyton Jones and Stephanie Weirich, who have been telling me about what they are up to with a denotational semantics for Verse. There’s some very curious stuff going on there that I’m keen to dig more into—more of this please! Simon mentioned to me that he had in the past got the feeling that most of the low-hanging fruit in programming languages were already picked, but once in a while, going back to the foundations of things can turn up unexpected gems. There is definitely some fun to be had here.
Speaking of Stephanie Weirich, it has been great to have both her and Steve Zdancewic visiting us on their Sabbatical. I’m looking forward to having them over for lunch in College once my Examining duties permit.