[Colloquium] Reminder: today's talk by Conal Elliott

[Margery Ishmael]

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DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE - TALK

Date: Friday, February 6, 2004
Time: 2:30 p.m.
Place: Ryerson 251

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Speaker:  CONAL ELLIOTT

Url:  http://conal.net/

Title: Declarative Graphics Programming

Abstract:

Software used to produce visual beauty is usually created with
imperative programming languages and is typically unbeautiful itself.
One fundamental reason for this situation is that these languages
reflect the underlying discreteness and sequentiality of the computers
that run them.  The essential nature of \emph{what an image is} becomes
muddled with details of \emph{how to display it} on a computer.  We
can, however, generate beautiful images with beautiful programs by
making a shift of programming paradigm, from \emph{doing} to
\emph{being}.  This claim is illustrated by examples expressed in
decorative languages for 2D imagery and for 3D geometry and shading.
These languages have highly optimizing compilers, with one targeting
CPUs and the other targeting modern graphics processors.

Host: David B. MacQueen

*Refreshments will follow the talk in Ryerson 255*

People in need of assistance should call 773-834-8977 in advance.