Scopes and frames improve meta-interpreter specialization

DynSem is a domain-specific language for concise specification of the dynamic semantics of programming languages, aimed at rapid experimentation and evolution of language designs. To maintain a short definition-to-execution cycle, DynSem specifications are meta-interpreted. Meta-interpretation introduces runtime overhead that is difficult to...

A scalable infrastructure for teaching concepts of programming languages in Scala with WebLab: An experience report

In this paper, we report on our experience in teaching a course on concepts of programming languages at TU Delft based on Krishnamurthi's PAPL book with the definitional interpreter approach using Scala as meta-language and using the WebLab learning management system. In particular, we discuss our experience with encoding of definitional...