Meeting 2018

• Dates: May 14-18, 2018
• Venue: Antwerp, Belgium
• Host: Tom Van Cutsem

https://lonelyplanetimages.imgix.net/mastheads/GettyImages-486812737_super.jpg

Program

The meeting starts on Monday morning May 14th at 9AM and ends with lunch on Friday May 18th.

The program consists of a series of 50 minute sessions, which are scheduled during the meeting. In each session the speaker gets 25 minutes to present and the audience gets 25 minutes to discuss, in no particular order (although we tend to give the presenter a couple of minutes to at least introduce the topic). Time is administered using a chess clock. (If attendance is high we may have to reduce session times somewhat.)

Prospective speakers are invited to send a talk proposal including title and abstract to the chair (Eelco Visser).

Venue

The meeting will take place in Antwerp, Belgium in the offices of Nokia Bell Labs. The offices are conveniently located right next to Antwerp Central railway station and a 10-minute walk from the city centre.

Address: Nokia Bell, Copernicuslaan 50, 2018 Antwerp, Belgium (Map).

Getting There

Fly into either Brussels National Airport (BRU) or Amsterdam Schiphol Airport (AMS). Brussels is closer to the final destination, but Amsterdam has more direct long-haul flights.

From Brussels airport, the easiest option is to simply take a local train from the Brussels airport train station to Antwerp Central station. There's a direct connection that should get you from the airport into Antwerp in about 30 minutes (no upfront seat reservation required). The meeting venue is located right next to Antwerp's Central station.

From Amsterdam Schiphol airport, there is also a direct train service to Antwerp. You can either take a local commuter train (no upfront seat reservation required) which should get you there in about 2 hours, or take a high-speed train (Thalys) which will get you there in 56 minutes. Thalys trains require upfront seat reservation.

For train time tables and tickets, see the website of the Belgian national railway service NMBS.

Detailed instructions for getting to the Nokia Bell Labs Antwerp offices, including some sightseeing highlights, can be found in this leaflet.

Accommodation

The Lindner Hotel is located right next to Nokia's offices.

A block of 20 rooms has been reserved for us at discounted rates until April 15, 2018. These are economy class single rooms, at the Nokia rate of EUR 109 per night (including breakfast, excluding EUR2.39 tourist tax).

To book a room, send a mail to reservations.antwerpen@lindnerhotels.be and mention the following:

• Reservation code "WGLD", block ID. 8819749.
• Your Name
• Check-in and check-out date
• Credit card info

You will get a confirmation through e-mail.

Reservation at the discounted rates in the Lindner Hotel is possible until April 15.

An alternative option is the Leopold Hotel, just a 5-minute walk from the Nokia offices. The rate for this hotel is EUR 102 per night (including breakfast, excluding EUR2.39 tourist tax). To make a reservation, send mail to res.antwerp@leopoldhotels.com stating that you are a visitor at Nokia and would like to receive the Nokia rate.

A more budget-friendly option also within short walking distance is the Ibis Hotel Antwerp Central station. Nokia does not have a special rate, so you can just book online.

Registration

Registration is required so that we can take care of logistics. Please fill in this registration form (note: registrations are closed. Please send mail to Tom Van Cutsem to make updates to your registration)

A registration fee of EUR 250 will be due 1 month prior to the start of the meeting. This fee will cover use of the meeting room, coffee breaks Mon-Fri, lunches Mon-Fri, dinners Mon-Thu and a social event on Wed afternoon. Payment details will be sent out separately.

Participants

• Tom Van Cutsem
• Eelco Visser
• Jonathan Edwards
• Tijs van der Storm
• Nada Amin
• Stefan Marr
• Éric Tanter
• Heather Miller
• Jan Vitek
• William Cook
• Roberto Ierusalimschy
• Markus Voelter
• Jan-Willem Maessen
• Luke Church
• Kim Bruce
• Matthias Hauswirth
• Edwin Brady
• Andrew Black
• François Pottier
• Elisa Gonzalez Boix
• Sylvan Clebsch
• James Noble
• Ronald Garcia
• Erik Ernst
• Klaus Ostermann
• Mark Miller

Schedule

TBD

Talk abstracts

Markus Voelter: A spreadsheet extension for KernelF

As we all (sometimes slightly jealously) acknowledge, spreadsheets are used widely for "programming", especially by the domain-experts we often want to convince of DSLs. We also all agree about the limitations of spreadsheets in terms the error-proneness of large, intricate sheets.

Essentially, spreadsheets represent functional programs that are executed reactively, whenever a user changes the contents of a cell. This makes them fit well with functional programming in general.

In this talk I present a prototypical extension of the KernelF^? functional programming language that supports spreadsheets. I briefly introduce KernelF^?, discuss the motivation for building the spreadsheet extension and then demonstrate how it fits in with KernelF^?'s functional paradigm.

We have also made several extensions of the spreadsheet paradigm that aim at fixing some of the problems observed in spreadsheets. I will introduce those, and hope to get feedback on other ideas we could