William E. Byrd, "A New Relational Language"
Channel: Houston FPUG
Date: 11/03/2024

Abstract: I’d like to talk about a new relational programming language I’ve just started working on, attempting to combine the pure relationality of miniKanren with better control of search and constraint solving.  In particular, the language should make it easier to implement efficient program synthesis algorithms.  Following Kowalski’s famous paper, `Algorithm = Logic + Control`, the language will separate logical specification from control via a tactics language.  This language is inspired by Dan Friedman’s original vision of miniKanren, suggestions by Michael Ballantyne to create this type of language, and conversations with Greg Rosenblatt, Nada Amin, Jason Hemann, Dmitri Boulytchev, and many others in the miniKanren community.

Bio: Will Byrd is a scientist at the Hugh Kaul Precision Medicine Institute at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.  He is co-author of both editions of ‘The Reasoned Schemer’, and one of the creators of the miniKanren relational programming language.  Will is also one of the creators of mediKanren, a system for bio-medical reasoning based on miniKanren, and funded under the NIH NCATS Biomedical Data Translator Project.