DIAS event: 'Programming languages for a better world' by Fabrizio Montesi

 If you could change the language(s) that people use, what would you do?

Come for a quick session on how this question has crucially helped humanity with achieving one of its most impressive feats yet: orchestrating electric currents through billions of microcomponents to achieve what we want with computers... by writing a mere few lines of text!

Writing this text (the ‘software’, or ‘app’) is called ‘programming’, and what enables programmers to be effective is the careful design of languages made exactly for the purpose of instructing computers: programming languages. Programming languages are continuously evolving and researched, because they hold an incredible twofold power. Specifically, they can guide programmers towards writing ‘good’ code, and they can steer programmers away from writing ‘bad’ code. Plus, it can really be fun to design a language – yes, programming languages are actual languages. We are going to see this together, as appreciating the process does not really require knowing anything about computers.

But on top of fun and curiosity, why should you care? Here are two reasons:
First, the potential of methods explored for programming languages so far goes well beyond programming. Today, we know that carefully crafted languages can effectively support organisation design, policy making, and even democracy. What’s next?
Second, understanding the potential of programming languages can empower you to participate in the greater discussion of how ‘good’ and ‘bad’ should be defined.   So, what’s your interest? 
•    Do you want programs to be greener?
•    Avoid that computers used in airports crash?
•    Enable citizens to understand how their data is used by websites, governments, and companies?

Society is facing huge challenges, like climate change, cybersecurity, and transparency of digital systems. Computers can help (or do harm), but we need creative discussions to achieve this potential at scale. We are going to look at some interesting ideas in the making. But we definitely need more. Maybe you can help

About Fabrizio Montesi
Fabrizio Montesi is Professor of Computer Science at the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Southern Denmark, where he leads the Section of Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity and Programming Languages. He received his PhD in Computer Science from the IT University of Copenhagen and his MSc in the same discipline from the University of Bologna. He was recently appointed as DIAS Chair of Science. 

Fabrizio Montesi is known for pioneering Choreographic Programming, an innovative paradigm for faster and safer programming of connected digital systems. He is also the maintainer and co-creator of Jolie, a programming technology for digital services. He researches new mathematical theories and programming technologies for taming the complexity of computer systems based on digital communication – like Internet services and cloud computing – and of their emergent behaviour.