FH #279: Notional Machines for Modern Scripting Languages

Friday Hacks, by NUS Hackers, is a weekly event where invited speakers share about their technical experiences and interests.

Notional Machines for Modern Scripting Languages
​Introductory CS courses often use scripting languages such as Python. A notional machine is a predictive set of abstractions designed for teaching computational processes. In his courses, he developed the CSE machine as a notional machine for scripting languages. The CSE machine can be derived from the SECD machine for the lambda-calculus originally proposed by Peter Landin. In this talk, he augments the resulting core machine step-by-step to explain a scripting language and demonstrates how it can accommodate a range of advanced features. The talk uses examples from NUS courses to illustrates how this approach works in practice.

​​Speakers Profile 🎙️️
​Prof Martin Henz initiated Source Academy, an immersive online experiential environment for learning programming used in CS1101S and at the University of San Francisco and Uppsala University. Since 2012, he has led NUS SoC’s flagship programming course CS1101S. Additionally, Martin Henz founded the experiential course CS4215 "Programming Language Implementation", and extensively subscribes to SoC's project-based course CP3108 for experiential learning.

​The work on CS1101S culminated in the textbook Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, JavaScript Edition. He also develops open-source software on GitHub and co-founded Workforce Optimizer Pte Ltd with Alan Sevugan.

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