Automating the teaching of artificial language using production systems

The work to be described here is an investigation into the means whereby the learning of programming languages may be made easier. The role of formal definitions of programming languages is studied and a system is described which utilises production systems as the basis for generating an environment in which students may test their understanding of programming languages. This system for automating the teaching of programming languages provides an experimental testbed for carrying out further investigations into programming behaviour

Proof-Theoretic Methods for Analysis of Functional Programs

We investigate how, in a natural deduction setting, we can specify concisely a wide variety of tasks that manipulate programs as data objects. This study will provide us with a better understanding of various kinds of manipulations of programs and also an operational understanding of numerous features and properties of a rich functional programming language. We present a technique, inspired by structural operational semantics and natural semantics, for specifying properties of, or operations on, programs. Specifications of this sort are presented as sets of inference rules and are encoded as clauses in a higher-order, intuitionistic meta-logic. Program properties are then proved by constructing proofs in this meta-logic. We argue the following points regarding these specifications and their proofs: (i) the specifications are clear and concise and they provide intuitive descriptions of the properties being described; (ii) a wide variety of program analysis tools can be specified in a single unified framework, and thus we can investigate and understand the relationship between various tools; (iii) proof theory provides a well-established and formal setting in which to examine meta-theoretic properties of these specifications; and (iv) the meta-logic we use can be implemented naturally in an extended logic programming language and thus we can produce experimental implementations of the specifications. We expect that our efforts will provide new perspectives and insights for many program manipulation tasks

The design and implementation of a distributed programming language.

by Li Wai Kit.Bibliography: leaves 170-178Thesis (M.Ph.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 198