| Title | : | Retrofitting Effect Handlers onto OCaml |
| Speaker | : | KC Sivaramakrishnan (Tarides) |
| Details | : | Wed, 11 Sep, 2024 2:00 PM @ SSB 334 |
| Abstract: | : | Abstract: Effect handlers are a language primitive for implementing non-local control-flow features such as async/await, generators/iterators, user-level threads, etc, as "just libraries". The expressive power of effect handlers is due to the fact that they promote structured programming with delimited continuations. The latest major release of OCaml, version 5.0, includes support for effect handlers. With this, OCaml became the first industrial-strength language to support effect handlers. In this talk, I will discuss the motivation for introducing effect handlers into OCaml, the programming models that they enable and the challenge in retrofitting them onto a 25+ year old, widely-used programming language. Bio: KC Sivaramakrishnan is the CTO of Tarides, a technology company focussed on building reliable systems using the power of OCaml. KC also holds an adjunct faculty position in the CSE department at IIT Madras. He is interested in discovering programming language abstractions that help developers build secure, scalable and reliable systems. He led the design and implementation of Multicore OCaml project that has brought the power of concurrent and parallel programming to the OCaml programming language. He is a core developer of the OCaml programming language. His papers have appeared at major programming language venues including PLDI, ICFP and OOPSLA. His work has won several awards including the SIGPLAN programming languages software award, best paper awards at ICFP, PADL and MARC symposium. KC previously held a faculty position in the CSE department at IIT Madras, and the 1851 Royal Exhibition and Darwin College research fellowships at the University of Cambridge. KC obtained his MS and PhD from Purdue University. |
