• Edit

Simone Martini

professeur à Université de Bologne (Italie) et chercheur à l’INRIA

Friday November 25th, 2022, 10h30, amphi Costes, ENAC.

Lego Programming

Abstract: The linguistic metaphor for computer programming is so ingrained in the perception and experience of the programmers that we (unconsciously) incorporate into it also programming experiences that are primarily non-verbal, like programming in visual languages such as Scratch, or Snap!. On the contrary, the way kids use these visual languages is much more akin to Lego building than to the construction of phrases. The (mostly historical) talk will connect this situation to some early experiences in programming language (and system) design, like Alan Kay's Smalltalk (and its integration into the Alto computing system), and Papert’s Logo. It is not a coincidence that Logo and Smalltalk share the same learning theory—constructionism.

Bio: Simone Martini received the Laurea degree and the PhD in Computer Science from Università di Pisa. Before joining Università di Bologna in 2002, he has been Research Associate and Associate Professor at Università di Pisa, and Professor of Computer Science at Università di Udine. He is a member of the Board of Governors of Università di Bologna, 2021-2014. He has been Head of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, 2015 - 2018. He is a member of the research team Focus, INRIA Sophia Antipolis-Méditerranée. He has been a visiting scientist at the Systems Research Center of Digital Equipment Corporation, Palo Alto; at Stanford University; at École normale supérieure, Paris; at Université Paris 13; at University of California at Santa Cruz; at the Collegium-Institute d'Études Avancées de Lyon (Fellow 2018-2019).

He is part of the Council of the Commission on History and Philosophy of Computing of the International Union for History and Philosophy of Science, 2017-2023.

His research interests are in the logical foundations of programming languages, and in history and philosophy of computing.