Programming languages

Research group’s website: http://plg.uwaterloo.ca

Group’s contact person: Peter Buhr

Group members

Other University of Waterloo Departments

  • Werner Dietl
    Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering
  • Patrick Lam
    Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering

Overview

Every aspect of computer science depends on programming languages to transform human ideas into a practical, functioning form executable by a computer. Many different programming languages have been developed and each addresses a well-defined purpose across a number of diverse computing environments. 

The Programming Languages Group (PLG) does research across this full spectrum: language design, parsing, type theory, static and dynamic analysis, code generation and runtime systems. PLG also examines the software life-cycle — development tools, code comprehension and transformation, performance, debugging, and programmer behaviour and productivity. The research goal is to ease transforming human ideas into an executable form by a computer, which can be accomplished at multiple levels in the highly complex software stack.