This post will support the EPSRC joint research project PLanCompS: Programming Language Components and Specifications. The Swansea team led by Professor Mosses at the Department of Computer Science, Swansea University will be working with teams from Royal Holloway, University of London and City University London; Microsoft Research Cambridge is a project partner. The Department of Computer Science at Swansea University has a strong and long-established record in the area of fundamentals of computing.
The project will develop and test a novel component-based framework for design, specification and implementation of programming languages. It includes:
• specification of a collection of highly reusable language components called funcons (fundamental constructs);
• translation of major general-purpose programming languages (C#, Java, F#) and domain-specific languages to funcons;
• validation of funcon and language specifications by testing generated prototype implementations;
• design and implementation of an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for component-based specification; and
• creation of a digital library of language specifications.
See the preliminary project page at
www.plancomps.org for a more detailed overview.
The post provides an excellent opportunity for researchers interested in the formal specification and implementation of programming languages, and in the tools needed to support practical language development based on formal semantics. It would particularly suit candidates with a background in theoretical computer science who are interested in practical applications; a further post based at Royal Holloway focussing on the IDE, frontend and backend tooling is expected to be advertised shortly.
Candidates for the post at Swansea are required to have a first degree in Computer Science (or a closely related subject), to have actively engaged in and contributed to writing and publishing research papers, to be able to understand and specify formal semantics of programming languages, and to be able to program in C# or Java as well as in a functional or logic programming language. Candidates who already have (or will soon complete) a PhD in Computer Science (or a closely related subject) will be preferred.
It is anticipated that interviews will be held on Thursday 23 June 2011.
This is one of two posts at Swansea with the same job description and person specification. The appointed candidates are to collaborate on some of the project tasks, and work individually on others.
