Rachit Nigam
@notypes.bsky.social
incoming MIT prof. & director of FLAME lab (https://flame.csail.mit.edu/).
building new languages and compilers to make hardware design fast, fun, and correct
building new languages and compilers to make hardware design fast, fun, and correct
Phew, survived the first grant submission and now onto prepping my first lecture! People weren't joking when they said you can't no-life as a prof. because you'll still have commitments tomorrow 😆
February 4, 2026 at 5:18 PM
Phew, survived the first grant submission and now onto prepping my first lecture! People weren't joking when they said you can't no-life as a prof. because you'll still have commitments tomorrow 😆
People keep asking me what the "Rust for hardware design" would look like. Those who know their PL history know that, before we could build Rust, we had to define ideas like "Memory Safety".
people.csail.mit.edu
February 3, 2026 at 4:17 PM
People keep asking me what the "Rust for hardware design" would look like. Those who know their PL history know that, before we could build Rust, we had to define ideas like "Memory Safety".
Hardware design should be SAFER!
Memory-safe software languages changed the world and allowed to us to build massively larger systems. At their heart, memory-safe languages eliminate a category of bugs that pointer-manipulating programs suffer from.
Memory-safe software languages changed the world and allowed to us to build massively larger systems. At their heart, memory-safe languages eliminate a category of bugs that pointer-manipulating programs suffer from.
January 27, 2026 at 9:59 PM
Hardware design should be SAFER!
Memory-safe software languages changed the world and allowed to us to build massively larger systems. At their heart, memory-safe languages eliminate a category of bugs that pointer-manipulating programs suffer from.
Memory-safe software languages changed the world and allowed to us to build massively larger systems. At their heart, memory-safe languages eliminate a category of bugs that pointer-manipulating programs suffer from.
Folks showing up to ASPLOS: would there be interest in having a "junior faculty social"? I used to organize in-person socials for PhD students at PLDI (pltea.github.io) and think it would be fun to have an excuse to meet the cohort of junior faculty!
PLTea
pltea.github.io
January 20, 2026 at 2:40 PM
Folks showing up to ASPLOS: would there be interest in having a "junior faculty social"? I used to organize in-person socials for PhD students at PLDI (pltea.github.io) and think it would be fun to have an excuse to meet the cohort of junior faculty!
The SRC is awesome! Especially good for new junior faculty as a way to meet a wide set of soon-to-be-PhD applicants and learn about all the cool research they've been doing!
Are you interested in programming languages research and mentoring up and coming PL researchers?
Then you should fill out the self-nomination form for the PLDI'26 Student Research Competition's PC: forms.gle/KSacbLEtw1Yw...
(Note, you must have a PhD by June 2026 to be a judge)
Then you should fill out the self-nomination form for the PLDI'26 Student Research Competition's PC: forms.gle/KSacbLEtw1Yw...
(Note, you must have a PhD by June 2026 to be a judge)
[PLDI 26] SRC Program Committee Nomination Form
Thank you for your interest in the program committee for the SRC! We're excited for you (or someone you are nominating) to join us in providing high-quality feedback to junior researchers in the PLDI ...
forms.gle
January 6, 2026 at 9:53 PM
The SRC is awesome! Especially good for new junior faculty as a way to meet a wide set of soon-to-be-PhD applicants and learn about all the cool research they've been doing!
Curious about some programming languages history: when/where did the idea of "Memory Safety" come from? Is there a good source that traces its development and formalization?
January 2, 2026 at 4:00 PM
Curious about some programming languages history: when/where did the idea of "Memory Safety" come from? Is there a good source that traces its development and formalization?
Continuing my long-running beef with "transpiler", I wrote a post trying to formalize different definitions of the word and why they don't work (for me): people.csail.mit.edu/rachit/post/...
(Not so secret goal: Get more people to read "On the Expressive Power of Programming Languages")
(Not so secret goal: Get more people to read "On the Expressive Power of Programming Languages")
Formally speaking, "Transpiler" is a useless word | Rachit Nigam
people.csail.mit.edu
January 2, 2026 at 4:00 PM
Continuing my long-running beef with "transpiler", I wrote a post trying to formalize different definitions of the word and why they don't work (for me): people.csail.mit.edu/rachit/post/...
(Not so secret goal: Get more people to read "On the Expressive Power of Programming Languages")
(Not so secret goal: Get more people to read "On the Expressive Power of Programming Languages")
Reposted by Rachit Nigam
Q: Is it OK to get the references for my paper from generative AI?
A: Only if you verify they are real & relevant. Submitting a paper with hallucinated references would violate the ACM Policy on Authorship, and your paper will likely be desk rejected.
A: Only if you verify they are real & relevant. Submitting a paper with hallucinated references would violate the ACM Policy on Authorship, and your paper will likely be desk rejected.
August 26, 2025 at 9:06 PM
Q: Is it OK to get the references for my paper from generative AI?
A: Only if you verify they are real & relevant. Submitting a paper with hallucinated references would violate the ACM Policy on Authorship, and your paper will likely be desk rejected.
A: Only if you verify they are real & relevant. Submitting a paper with hallucinated references would violate the ACM Policy on Authorship, and your paper will likely be desk rejected.
Reposted by Rachit Nigam
Congratulations @clairexen.bsky.social: #HotChips / IEEE TCMM 2025 Open Source Hardware Contribution Award
![Slide from Hot Chips 2025:
"2025 TCMM Open Source Hardware Contribution Award:
Claire Wolf: In recognition of outstanding contributions to RISC-V —
including BitManip, RVFI, and PicoRV32—and to open-source tools like Yosys and IceStorm. [IEEE Computer Society TCMM / Technical Community on Microprocessors and Microcomputers]"](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:egm6nnyusca4icjiqlb7pyiw/bafkreidgommoceirpkrigeshonoc5zmyhj2dnipsi5wngbl72z64ep3jze@jpeg)
August 27, 2025 at 1:33 AM
Congratulations @clairexen.bsky.social: #HotChips / IEEE TCMM 2025 Open Source Hardware Contribution Award
@sigplan-pldi.bsky.social was an absolute blast this year and had a lot of interesting conversations and papers! I've written down a little retrospective reflecting on some of them: people.csail.mit.edu/rachit/post/...
Reflecting on PLDI 2025 | Rachit Nigam
people.csail.mit.edu
July 7, 2025 at 1:07 PM
@sigplan-pldi.bsky.social was an absolute blast this year and had a lot of interesting conversations and papers! I've written down a little retrospective reflecting on some of them: people.csail.mit.edu/rachit/post/...
At PLDI this year, I received the SIGPLAN John C. Reynolds Distinguished Dissertation award and at ISCA, I received an honorable mention for the SIGARCH / TCCA Outstanding dissertation award!
Truly honored to receive recognition from both the communities! Really excited for what comes next!
Truly honored to receive recognition from both the communities! Really excited for what comes next!
July 1, 2025 at 3:31 PM
At PLDI this year, I received the SIGPLAN John C. Reynolds Distinguished Dissertation award and at ISCA, I received an honorable mention for the SIGARCH / TCCA Outstanding dissertation award!
Truly honored to receive recognition from both the communities! Really excited for what comes next!
Truly honored to receive recognition from both the communities! Really excited for what comes next!
somehow in $CURRENT_YEAR, I still can't get OCaml's LSP to jump to the correct definition for me after hours of debugging....
April 6, 2025 at 9:43 PM
somehow in $CURRENT_YEAR, I still can't get OCaml's LSP to jump to the correct definition for me after hours of debugging....
Reposted by Rachit Nigam
PLMW@PLDI'25 is now accepting applications: pldi25.sigplan.org/home/PLMW-pl...
Deadline: April 10, 2025
PLMW an excellent place to learn about exciting PL research, from the ground up, and to find your PL friends!
Please apply!
Deadline: April 10, 2025
PLMW an excellent place to learn about exciting PL research, from the ground up, and to find your PL friends!
Please apply!
PLMW @ PLDI 2025 - Programming Languages Mentoring Workshop - PLDI 2025
The Programming Language Mentoring Workshop (PLMW) aims to broaden the exposure of late-stage undergraduate students and early-stage graduate students to research and career opportunities in programmi...
pldi25.sigplan.org
March 28, 2025 at 3:56 AM
PLMW@PLDI'25 is now accepting applications: pldi25.sigplan.org/home/PLMW-pl...
Deadline: April 10, 2025
PLMW an excellent place to learn about exciting PL research, from the ground up, and to find your PL friends!
Please apply!
Deadline: April 10, 2025
PLMW an excellent place to learn about exciting PL research, from the ground up, and to find your PL friends!
Please apply!
implicit public modules baaaaad
March 28, 2025 at 5:14 PM
implicit public modules baaaaad
Reposted by Rachit Nigam
SPAA'25 is seeking submissions! Uniquely this year, SPAA seeks a broader set of research areas, including algorithms, systems, PL, applications, quantum, and more. The central theme is parallelism and concurrency.
Deadline: Feb 28
Please consider submitting!
spaa.acm.org/call-for-pap...
Deadline: Feb 28
Please consider submitting!
spaa.acm.org/call-for-pap...
Call For Papers – ACM Symposium on Parallelism in Algorithms and Architectures
spaa.acm.org
January 27, 2025 at 8:34 PM
SPAA'25 is seeking submissions! Uniquely this year, SPAA seeks a broader set of research areas, including algorithms, systems, PL, applications, quantum, and more. The central theme is parallelism and concurrency.
Deadline: Feb 28
Please consider submitting!
spaa.acm.org/call-for-pap...
Deadline: Feb 28
Please consider submitting!
spaa.acm.org/call-for-pap...
Well-deserved! Iris is also a really great example of how well-engineered artifacts make it dramatically easier to pursue technically deep research.
Very proud to announce that the first Iris paper received the 2025 Most Influential POPL Paper Award this week. This is a testament to the amazing contributions of a wonderful international network of collaborators.
www.youtube.com/live/ZKwpY0g...
www.youtube.com/live/ZKwpY0g...
January 27, 2025 at 6:42 PM
Well-deserved! Iris is also a really great example of how well-engineered artifacts make it dramatically easier to pursue technically deep research.
What are people's favorite "core systems" textbooks (OS, Networking, Databases, etc.)?
January 27, 2025 at 6:33 PM
What are people's favorite "core systems" textbooks (OS, Networking, Databases, etc.)?
using emacs (spacemacs) and enjoying it...i have been corrupted
January 22, 2025 at 3:28 PM
using emacs (spacemacs) and enjoying it...i have been corrupted
Switching to OCaml really makes me appreciate how much effort Rust folks put into good error messages
January 17, 2025 at 5:16 PM
Switching to OCaml really makes me appreciate how much effort Rust folks put into good error messages
Reposted by Rachit Nigam
What role should Student Research Competitions play in mentoring new researchers? @notypes.bsky.social and @avh.bsky.social argue for a renewed focus on feedback and visibility for SRCs. blog.sigplan.org/2025/01/13/t...
The Missing Mentoring Pillar
The Missing Mentoring Pillar The programming languages (PL) community has developed a whole host of mentoring pillars to help new research become a part of our community The Programming Languages M…
blog.sigplan.org
January 13, 2025 at 4:49 PM
What role should Student Research Competitions play in mentoring new researchers? @notypes.bsky.social and @avh.bsky.social argue for a renewed focus on feedback and visibility for SRCs. blog.sigplan.org/2025/01/13/t...
Reposted by Rachit Nigam
Mentoring is incredibly important to students and young researchers. @notypes.bsky.social and @avh.bsky.social talk about the "missing mentoring pillar" in our latest PL Perspectives blog post blog.sigplan.org/2025/01/13/t...
The Missing Mentoring Pillar
The Missing Mentoring Pillar The programming languages (PL) community has developed a whole host of mentoring pillars to help new research become a part of our community The Programming Languages M…
blog.sigplan.org
January 13, 2025 at 4:29 PM
Mentoring is incredibly important to students and young researchers. @notypes.bsky.social and @avh.bsky.social talk about the "missing mentoring pillar" in our latest PL Perspectives blog post blog.sigplan.org/2025/01/13/t...
Been thinking about these ideas for a couple of years! Finally time to put them into action and make the SRC an awesome place for junior researchers to get high-quality feedback on ongoing work!
What role should Student Research Competitions play in mentoring new researchers? @notypes.bsky.social and @avh.bsky.social argue for a renewed focus on feedback and visibility for SRCs. blog.sigplan.org/2025/01/13/t...
The Missing Mentoring Pillar
The Missing Mentoring Pillar The programming languages (PL) community has developed a whole host of mentoring pillars to help new research become a part of our community The Programming Languages M…
blog.sigplan.org
January 13, 2025 at 4:53 PM
Been thinking about these ideas for a couple of years! Finally time to put them into action and make the SRC an awesome place for junior researchers to get high-quality feedback on ongoing work!
Reposted by Rachit Nigam
The paper on Data Race Freedom a la Mode was just awarded a Distinguished Paper award at POPL25!
An excellent excuse to read all about a potential future for safe parallel programming in OCaml.
richarde.dev/papers/2025/...
An excellent excuse to read all about a potential future for safe parallel programming in OCaml.
richarde.dev/papers/2025/...
January 13, 2025 at 12:30 AM
The paper on Data Race Freedom a la Mode was just awarded a Distinguished Paper award at POPL25!
An excellent excuse to read all about a potential future for safe parallel programming in OCaml.
richarde.dev/papers/2025/...
An excellent excuse to read all about a potential future for safe parallel programming in OCaml.
richarde.dev/papers/2025/...
wait does ocaml NOT have global DCE?
January 10, 2025 at 5:44 PM
wait does ocaml NOT have global DCE?
Reposted by Rachit Nigam
☕️ We’re running LATTE again: our ASPLOS workshop about languages/compilers/tools/whatever for hardware design.
Submissions are just little 2-pagers, due on January 31. Plenty of time to throw something together! capra.cs.cornell.edu/latte25/
Submissions are just little 2-pagers, due on January 31. Plenty of time to throw something together! capra.cs.cornell.edu/latte25/
LATTE ’25
capra.cs.cornell.edu
January 9, 2025 at 5:15 PM
☕️ We’re running LATTE again: our ASPLOS workshop about languages/compilers/tools/whatever for hardware design.
Submissions are just little 2-pagers, due on January 31. Plenty of time to throw something together! capra.cs.cornell.edu/latte25/
Submissions are just little 2-pagers, due on January 31. Plenty of time to throw something together! capra.cs.cornell.edu/latte25/