Scalac survival guide & The GHC API

Tonight we've got two compiler talks to explore and demystify the tools and (somewhat untapped) power that we have at our fingertips when writing software in Scala and Haskell. Through these talks, you should come away with an appreciation of the information that is available from both compilers and maybe have an idea or two for a tool of your own.

Both talks will be appreciable to people of all skill levels; even if you don't entirely understand what's going on, you'll certainly come away with an appreciation of and excitement for the rich information we have about statically typed programs. :)

Scalac Survival Guide - Jason Zaugg

BIO: Jason Zaugg once tinkered with the Scala compiler, got hooked, and now works full time on the Scala language at Typesafe.

As a programmer, tinkering with the implementation of the very language you work with (and think in) a uniquely satisfying endeavour. Scala offers lots of avenues to try this: you can author compiler plugins to perform static analysis, use macros to generate boilerplate, or modify the compiler to fix bugs or implement your own pet feature. More generally, thinking about the meta-aspects of the language invariably lead to a fresh perspective and deeper understanding that benefit your regular coding, too.

But all of these tasks can at times seem daunting, infuriating, or out of reach. This talk will issue you with the map, compass, flashlight, and roll of duct tape that you need to embark on this journey. It is drawn from the tools and techniques that I use on a daily basis when I'm working on the compiler.

Bring a Scala 2.11.6 REPL along if you want to code along, or skim the Reflection and Macro guides if you want to get a head start on some of the concepts we'll touch upon, or check out or Hacker's and Contributing guide to plan your first pull request.

The GHC API - Carlo Hamalainen

In his free time, Carlo wrote a tool called ghc-imported-from to help leverage the information from the compiler in code that he was writing.

In this talk Carlo will talk us through his journey, from zero code to his completed tool and the parts of the GHC API that he used along the way.

By attending this talk, you should come away less fearful of the GHC API and maybe have a few ideas to add into tools of your own or add functionality to existing ones like ghc-mod.