Eelco Visser
- Professor of Computer Science
- Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Professor
- Chair of TU Delft Programming Languages Group
- Department of Software Technology
- Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science
- Delft University of Technology
- Delft, The Netherlands (CEST/CET)
- e.visser@tudelft.nl | visser@acm.org
- http://eelcovisser.org
- About | Contact
Prospective PhD Students & Postdocs
I'm looking for PhD students, postdocs, and student programmers. See my projects and research topics for an impression of my interests. See the PL group's open positions for what is available right now. Send me an email with CV and motivation/research interests, also to explore future opportunities.Expressing Intent
How to enable software engineers to express intent directly in terms of the concepts of a domain of interest (and get the corresponding implementation for free)? Most of my (group's) research is related, one way or another, to that question, and includes: design of meta-languages for language design (to support the development of new languages), language theory and implementation techniques (such as parsing, name resolution, constraint solving, rewriting), design of domain-specific languages for particular domains (such as web programming, build systems, digital printers), evaluation of these languages in applications (such as WebLab, conf.researchr.org).Declare Your Language with Spoofax
How to enable software engineers to design and implement (domain-specific) programming languages? In the Spoofax Language Workbench project we explore solutions and integrate these in a programming environment for the development of languages using high-level declarative meta-languages for syntax, static semantics, dynamic semantics, program analysis, and program transformation.
Name Resolution with Scope Graphs
How to formalize the name binding rules of programming languages? We are developing scope graphs, a uniform framework for the representation of a wide range of name binding patterns in programming languages. A general theory of name resolution interprets scope graphs to resolve references to their corresponding declarations. Scope graphs are a core component of the Statix language for type system specification.
Incremental Software Pipelines with PIE
How to declaratively specify software pipeline for fine and coarse grained tasks and ensure their sound incremental execution? PIE is a domain-specific language and runtime for the specification of software pipelines and their incremental execution. PIE provides an expressive language for defining pipelines including dynamic dependencies, and guarantees efficient, precise and scalable incremental execution.Programming Education at Scale with WebLab
How to scale programming education to large numbers of students? How to scale delivery of many assignments and exam questions for a course and still provide feedback to students? WebLab provides a web-based learning environment for programming education that supports lab assignments and proctored digital exams. WebLab is currently used in 12 courses at TU Delft.
Inaugural speech 2014
Teaching
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Compiler Construction
In this course students study declarative meta-languages for compiler construction such as context-free grammars, scope graphs, type constraints, and strategic rewriting. Using this knowledge they build a compiler and IDE for MiniJava using the Spoofax language workbench.
Master CS | CS4200 | Q1+Q2 | Info -
Language Engineering Project
In this course students explore (some aspect) of the design and implementation of a (domain-specific) programming language by building an implementation in Spoofax.
Master CS | IN4333 | Q4 | Info -
Seminar Programming Languages
In this seminar we discuss papers from the programming languages literature.
Master CS | CS4130 | Q1 | Info -
Thesis Projects
I supervise bachelor and master thesis projects in computer science at TU Delft. See my research areas to get an impression of my interests. Send me an email if you are interested in doing a project with me.
Bachelor & Master CS | CSE3000, IN5000 | Q1-4 | Info - Other PL courses | Older courses
- Review Committee Member of OOPSLA 2020
- Steering Committee Chair of ACM SPLASH
- Track co-chair of VERSEN track at ICT.OPEN 2020
- Program Committee member of PLNL 2019
- Review Committee Chair of OOPSLA 2019
- Associate Editor of PACMPL
- Track co-chair of VERSEN track at ICT.OPEN 2019
- Co-organizer of PLNL 2018
- Older activities
Upcoming Events
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Paper: Intrinsically-Typed Definitional Interpreters for Linear, Session-Typed Languages by Arjen Rouvoet, Casper Bach Poulsen, Robbert Krebbers, Eelco Visser accepted at CPP 2020
January 25, 2020 (posted November 27, 2019) -
Hiring: The Spoofax team has a vacancy for a PhD student in language engineering
February 01, 2020 (posted December 01, 2019) -
Lecture: PLISS 2020 Summer School in Bertinoro, Italy.
May 20, 2020 (posted November 11, 2019) -
Tutorial: Declarative Language Definition with Spoofax at PLDI 2020
June 15, 2020 (posted December 09, 2019) -
Workshop: Build Automation and Programming Languages (BAPL'20) at PLDI 2020
June 15, 2020 (posted December 09, 2019) -
Lecture: Computer Science Club and at Jetbrains in St. Petersburg.
September 26, 2020 (posted November 20, 2019)
Latest News
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Grant: NWO has awarded our proposal to the Mastering Complexity (MasCot) call to work on 'Programming and Validating Software Restructurings'. We will be hiring two PhD students in Delft and one in Eindhoven.
December 09, 2019 -
Proud to present Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages. Volume 3 Issue OOPSLA, October 2019. All 73 articles are open access. The editorial message explains the reviewing process.
October 14, 2019 -
Invited talk: KNAW symposium on safety-critical software (in dutch) about language-based software safety. Attendance on October 31 is free (register at the website).
October 01, 2019 -
Blog post: Fast and Safe Linguistic Abstraction for the Masses (my contribution to the 2018 workshop A Research Agenda for Formal Methods in the Netherlands)
September 29, 2019 -
Award: Jasper Denkers wins best paper and best presentation award at ESEC/FSE 2019 Doctoral Symposium for his paper on 'A Longitudinal Field Study on Creation and Use of Domain-Specific Languages in Industry' based on work with/at Océ.
August 27, 2019 - Archive
Building 28 at Van Mourik Broekmanweg
Static Semantics
Goal: Enable language designers to declaratively specify the name binding and typing rules of programming languages and automatically derive (efficient and incremental) type checkers from such specifications. Develop high-level model for representation of name binding rules and operations such as name resolution and refactoring, depending on name binding.
Techniques: name binding and resolution with scope graphs, constraints, constraint solving.
Languages: Statix, NaBL2, NaBL.
Dynamic Semantics
Goal: Identify the building blocks of the dynamic semantics of programming languages to create a specification language that can be used to concisely define a wide range of languages, derive efficient execution engines, and serve as the basis for automatic type soundness proofs.
Techniques: operational semantics, definitional interpreters, abstract machines, partial evaluation, intrinsically-typed abstract syntax, scopes and frames.
Languages: Dynamix, DynSem.
Syntax Definition and Parsing
Goal: Declarative specification of all syntactic aspects of a programming language in a single source from whcih a wide range of syntactic processors can be derived.
Techniques: character-level grammars, modular grammars, scannerless parsing, incremental parsing, declarative disambiguation rules, pretty-printing, syntax-aware editors, syntactic code completion.
Languages: SDF3.
Tools: JSGLR.
Language Composition
Goal: Support the combination of languages or language libraries into composite language.
Techniques: language union, language extension, language embedding, meta-programming, parse table composition.
Testing
Goal: Support testing of language processors. Generation of representative tests from language definitions.
Languages: SPT.