Sigma Xi Fall 2024 Lecture with Professor Daniel Barowy, Computer Science
Thu, November 21st, 2024
4:15 pm - 5:15 pm
It seems like every week we learn of surprising advances in the capabilities of artificial intelligence. With the help of an AI, a person with no training in programming can ask a computer to render realistic images, write coherent prose, and even generate functioning computer programs. One can even now communicate with a computer by spoken word, instead of typing, in essence having a natural conversation by voice. By contrast, mastering the skill to program a computer takes years of dedicated study and practice, and as many budding CS students can tell you, there is a lot of miscommunication along the way. Therefore, we should ask: are programming languages really necessary anymore?
In this talk, I will explain what a programming language is, why we still need them, and why, even with AI assistants, computer programming and computer science are likely to be around for a long time. Nevertheless, I hope to share my excitement about a future that employs better, more intelligent tools to help programmers of the future write cheaper, faster, and more reliable programs. I will illustrate by discussing some of my recent work done in collaboration with Williams CS students.
Daniel Barowy is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Williams College, specializing in the design and implementation of programming languages. His work on low-effort build systems won a USENIX ATC “best paper” award in 2022 (joint work with Charlie Curtsinger at Grinnell College) and his work on automatically transforming spreadsheet layouts by example won PLDI’s “distinguished software artifact” in 2015 (joint work with Sumit Gulwani, Ben Zorn, and Ted Hart at Microsoft). He earned his PhD in 2017 from UMass Amherst, advised by Emery Berger. Dan joined Williams in 2017.