Expression languages and Product minded thinking

PHPSW returns in 2025 on Wednesday 8th Jan and we have 2 fantastic speakers to kick off the year...

Q&A session
Emily Cook will be leading the Q&A session, the theme is "How can developers be product-minded".

Talk
Writing an Expression Language from Scratch in 45 minutes
Speaker: Dan Leech

Expression languages allows you to evaluate strings such as 5 + 5 * someVar to a value. They have a multitude of usages - from rule engines to web frameworks. The patterns you learn can further be used to create SQL parsers, code formatters, code generators and other eclectic entities for work and pleasure!

This talk will clearly demonstrate how to write a simple lexer, parser and
tree-walking interpreter. We'll transform bytes to tokens, tokens to nodes and evaluate nodes to values!

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SR2 – Socially Responsible Recruitment (https://www.sr2rec.co.uk/) and Lamp Bristol (https://www.lampbristol.com/) are kindly helping us host this evening. Thanks to them!

Your first time coming to PHPSW? Welcome!
Here's how the evening tends to run:

• Feel free to turn up from 6:30pm.
• We'll have a selection of soft drinks & alcoholic drinks available from about 6:45pm, all free of charge thanks to our sponsors. It's a great chance to speak to people (we're a friendly bunch!) and do a bit of networking. Just speak to an organiser if you'd like an introduction to people, or just dive in and say "hello!".
• At 7pm, we'll do a quick welcome talk and some community announcements
• At ~7:05pm we'll start our talk
• At ~8:10pm we'll start the Q&A
• We finish at ~9pm. We always go for a drink somewhere afterwards to discuss the talks and anything else that takes your fancy. 🐘