Getting to BEAM, without going through Erlang

Speaker: Kofi Gumbs | https://github.com/hkgumbs | @hkgumbs

Using Erlang to create a language for the BEAM is well-modeled, with projects like Elixir, LFE, and Alpaca growing in popularity and maturity. There are several benefits to leveraging the Erlang toolchain; however, one restriction screams out: your compiler has to be written in Erlang!* But what if, despite conventional models, BEAM itself is a friendly, open compilation target? Are there benefits to sidestepping the Erlang toolchain altogether?

In this talk, we'll discuss the making of a compile-to-BEAM language, from scratch. You will have a guided tour through codec-beam, a BEAM assembler written in Haskell, which provides an explicit model for the BEAM's semantics. Finally we'll compare that project to the Erlang compiler's assembler, and see if we can beat OTP at it's own game!

• Yes, technically your compiler could also be self-hosted

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At the end of the meetup we will be giving away a copy of Introducing Erlang 2nd Edition courtesy of O'REILLY

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Pizza served at 6pm, talk will start at 6:15pm, please be on time.

We will greet you downstairs and send you up. Please do not be late as we cannot be downstairs once the meetup starts.

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