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#guysteele#metanotation#programminglanguagetheory

Invited Talk - Guy Steele

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  • Recommended by 11 people: 7 on Hacker News, 1 on Lobsters, 2 in engineering communities and 1 curated list.
  • A classic. People kept recommending it from 2017 to 2023.
  • Presented by Guy Steele

Intermediate. Assumes working knowledge.

38K views9 years ago11 recommendations

Programming languagesComputer scienceLanguage design and type systemsComputation and complexity

Guy Steele traces the history and development of the informal, often unspecified metanotation used by computer scientists to describe programming languages.

Guy L. Steele has been instrumental in designing and documenting several programming languages. Guy has served on accredited standards committees X3J11 (C language) and X3J3 (Fortran), and served as chairman of X3J13 (Common Lisp). He was also a member of the IEEE committee that produced the IEEE Standard for the Scheme Programming Language, IEEE Std 1178-1990. At Thinking Machines Corporation he co-developed the languages Connection Machine Lisp, C*, and Connection Machine Fortran. Whilst at Sun Microsystems (and now at Oracle) he has advised on the evolution of the Java programming language. He is author or co-author of five books: Common Lisp: The Language, C: A Reference Manual, The Hacker’s Dictionary, The High Performance Fortran Handbook, and The Java Language Specification. He has been given the Grace Murray Hopper Award (1988), the ACM SIGPLAN Programming Languages Achievement Award (1996), and the Harry H. Goode Memorial Award (2007).

Why it's here

11 people recommend this

What people say. Recommended as an excellent and deep exposition on the history of mathematical and computer science notations.

yumaikason Lobsters • Recommends

It's time for a new old language
14View on Lobsters

Jachon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images”

…f math, I'll concede learning to type an expression on a computer is a different notation than writing it with pen, but if you can't learn that, why learn math? Each domain does its own thing too and isn't even necessarily consistent. Guy Steele gave a great talk a few years ago on "Computer Science Metanotation", and that's just one area of math: link to this video (Edit: And to conclude here, learning to read and write with some notation tends to be easy, it's learning what the math actually means that is the hard part.)…
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earleybirdon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Mathematical Notation, Past and Future (2000)”

For a deeper exposition on language and notation, Guy Steele0 is the definitive authority :-) - with some discussion here1. 0 link to this video 1 link
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amar-lakshon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Ask HN: How to get better knowledge about math notations in computer science”

Excellent talk by Guy Steele explaining the history of maths/comp notations that can probably lead you to the right path through original sources: link to this video Then have a look at this extremely underrated talk by Alexander Stepanov for basically falling in love with maths (he gives a long view of maths in general adorned with beautiful commentary): link
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programming-talkscurated list on GitHubRecommends

Under “On the Industry/Community”

Invited Talk 01:07:21 by **Guy Steele** (2017) (on notation) A
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hellofunkon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Effective Programs: 10 Years of Clojure”

> I didn't really understand his talk I think he was too abstract Then you better stay away from another talk at the same conference, by Guy Steele 0 ! 0 link to this video
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hyperion2010on Hacker News • Recommends

On “Problems of Traditional Math Notation (2004)”

Not directly math but Guy Steel's talk at Clojure Conj 0 on computer science type notation touches on related issues and is a great watch. 0. link to this video
View on Hacker News

Jachon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Clojure at Netflix (2013) [slides]”

You would probably enjoy this talk by Guy Steele where he discusses the language of mathematics that computer science people use in their papers (Computer Science Metanotation) to talk about other languages. Funnily it's untyped and lacking a rigorous specification... link to this video
View on Hacker News

MathMonkeyManon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Coroutines for Go”

Guy Steele Jr. worked on a language called "Fortress." There are a few good talks that he gives: - (toy problem) link - (parallelism) link - (languages) link to this video
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dan-robertsonon Hacker News • Recommends

On “How should I read type system notation?”

There was a Guy Steele talk a while ago on this topic. He also gives searchable names for some of the things (eg the ‘2d inference rule diagrams’). He calls it ‘computer science metanotation’, though I think it’s more of a PLT thing. link to this video
View on Hacker News

u/forthdudein r/compsci • Recommends

Computer Science Metanotation — Guy Steele link to this video
1View on Reddit

u/newswimin r/compsci • Recommends

Guy Steele on Computer Science Metanotation (keynote, Conj 2017)
1View on Reddit

u/agumonkeyin r/compsci • Mentions

On “type checked mathematical notation”

Guy Steele made a talk on the absurd amount of variations in research paper notation and tried to bring some formal checking to it. ps: found the video - link to this video (@ clojure conj) - link to this video (@ ACM PPoPP)
5View on Reddit

u/oilshellin r/ProgrammingLanguages • Mentions

On “Crash Course on Notation in Programming Language Theory - Jeremy G. Siek”

…p semantics. But honestly my first question is always: "How do I know this isn't full of bugs?" Are you just supposed to stare at it in trace it in you rmind? ----- Related: I highly recommend this talk about Guy Steele critcizing the state of metalanguages / metanotation. It's good to know that even experts don't like the state of affairs! link to this video…
3View on Reddit

carapaceon Hacker News • Mentions

On “In Further Praise of Dependent Types”

It's part of an arcane knowledge that is seldom reified. "It's Time for a New Old Language" – Guy Steele link to this video (youtube.com) link to this video link He calls it "Computer Science Metanotation".
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bpyneon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Programming language notation is a barrier to entry”

Ironically, I ran into this talk by Guy Steele today. He presents the development of the Computer Science Metalanguage. link to this video
View on Hacker News