specification

Rob Pike presents the Go 2 draft specifications at the Sydney Golang Meetup, covering the Go 2 process and several proposals including generics. The Q&A contains a well-known exchange about the name of the language.

Leslie Lamport argues that programmers, like architects, should write rigorous specifications before coding, especially for concurrent and distributed systems. The talk introduces the case for writing specs (the TLA+ mindset) as a way of thinking above the code.

Hillel Wayne's Strange Loop talk introducing TLA+ as a specification language for finding concurrency bugs in designs. It covers stalling, race conditions and dropped messages, with PlusCal examples.

Rob Miles explains for Computerphile why simple rule sets like Asimov's Three Laws cannot make robots and AI safe. Terms like harm and human are too ambiguous to specify precisely.

Conal Elliott presents his paper on automatic differentiation, deriving a simple, generalized AD algorithm from a natural specification. Varying the representation of derivatives yields forward and reverse mode algorithms that avoid the complexity and statefulness of backpropagation.

Nadia Polikarpova's Strange Loop talk on program synthesis driven by refinement types, as in Synquid. It shows how rich type specifications can be turned into verified, executable code.

Stuart Halloway shows how Clojure's spec library lets you build programs that are both agile and robust. He covers declarative, predicate-based specification layered on interactive REPL development.

Robert Moss's JuliaCon 2015 talk describes using Julia as a specification language for ACAS X, the next-generation airborne collision avoidance system that succeeds TCAS.

Omar Rizwan's short !!Con talk about writing a Breakout game in JavaScript that runs inside a PDF. It explores the surprisingly large PDF specification, including its scripting support.

A one-minute response video to the viral 'The Expert' sketch. It shows how to draw seven perpendicular red lines, some in green ink, some in transparent ink, one shaped like a kitten.