Shortcut fusion rules for the derivation of circular and higher-order monadic programs

Functional programs often combine separate parts using intermediate data structures for communicating results. Programs so defined are modular, easier to understand and maintain, but suffer from inefficiencies due to the generation of those gluing data structures. To eliminate such redundant data structures, some program transformation techniques have been proposed. One such technique is shortcut fusion, and has been studied in the context of both pure and monadic functional programs. In this paper, we study several shortcut fusion extensions, so that, alternatively, circular or higher-order programs are derived. These extensions are also provided for effect-free programs and monadic ones. Our work results in a set of generic calculation rules, that are widely applicable, and whose correctness is formally established.(undefined

How functional programming mattered

In 1989 when functional programming was still considered a niche topic, Hughes wrote a visionary paper arguing convincingly ‘why functional programming matters’. More than two decades have passed. Has functional programming really mattered? Our answer is a resounding ‘Yes!’. Functional programming is now at the forefront of a new generation of programming technologies, and enjoying increasing popularity and influence. In this paper, we review the impact of functional programming, focusing on how it has changed the way we may construct programs, the way we may verify programs, and fundamentally the way we may think about programs

An investigation of the laws of traversals

Traversals of data structures are ubiquitous in programming. Consequently, it is important to be able to characterise those structures that are traversable and understand their algebraic properties. Traversable functors have been characterised by McBride and Paterson as those equipped with a distributive law over arbitrary applicative functors; however, laws that fully capture the intuition behind traversals are missing. This article is an attempt to remedy this situation by proposing laws for characterising traversals that capture the intuition behind them. To support our claims, we prove that finitary containers are traversable in our sense and argue that elements in a traversable structure are visited exactly once.Fil: Jaskelioff, Mauro Javier. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Rosario. Centro Internacional Franco Argentino de Ciencias de la Información y de Sistemas. Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Centro Internacional Franco Argentino de Ciencias de la Información y de Sistemas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Rosario; ArgentinaFil: Rypacek, Ondrej. King's College London; Reino Unid

Stream Fusion, to Completeness

Stream processing is mainstream (again): Widely-used stream libraries are now available for virtually all modern OO and functional languages, from Java to C# to Scala to OCaml to Haskell. Yet expressivity and performance are still lacking. For instance, the popular, well-optimized Java 8 streams do not support the zip operator and are still an order of magnitude slower than hand-written loops. We present the first approach that represents the full generality of stream processing and eliminates overheads, via the use of staging. It is based on an unusually rich semantic model of stream interaction. We support any combination of zipping, nesting (or flat-mapping), sub-ranging, filtering, mapping-of finite or infinite streams. Our model captures idiosyncrasies that a programmer uses in optimizing stream pipelines, such as rate differences and the choice of a "for" vs. "while" loops. Our approach delivers hand-written-like code, but automatically. It explicitly avoids the reliance on black-box optimizers and sufficiently-smart compilers, offering highest, guaranteed and portable performance. Our approach relies on high-level concepts that are then readily mapped into an implementation. Accordingly, we have two distinct implementations: an OCaml stream library, staged via MetaOCaml, and a Scala library for the JVM, staged via LMS. In both cases, we derive libraries richer and simultaneously many tens of times faster than past work. We greatly exceed in performance the standard stream libraries available in Java, Scala and OCaml, including the well-optimized Java 8 streams

A shortcut fusion rule for circular program calculation

Circular programs are a powerful technique to express multiple traversal algorithms as a single traversal function in a lazy setting. In this paper, we present a shortcut deforestation technique to calculate circular programs. The technique we propose takes as input the composition of two functions, such that the first builds an intermediate structure and some additional context information which are then processed by the second one, to produce the final result. Our transformation into circular programs achieves intermediate structure deforestation and multiple traversal elimination. Furthermore, the calculated programs preserve the termination properties of the original ones

A Tutorial on the Universality and Expressiveness of Fold

In functional programming, fold is a standard operator that encapsulates a simple pattern of recursion for processing lists. This article is a tutorial on two key aspects of the fold operator for lists. First of all, we emphasize the use of the universal property of fold both as a proof principle that avoids the need for inductive proofs, and as a definition principle that guides the transformation of recursive functions into definitions using fold. Secondly, we show that even though the pattern of recursion encapsulated by fold is simple, in a language with tuples and functions as first-class values the fold operator has greater expressive power than might first be expected

"Explosive" programming controlled by calculation

In the design of a functional library in the area of data-mining several algorithmic patterns have been identified which call for generic programming. Some of these have to do with flattening functions which arise in a particular group of hierarchical systems. In this paper we describe our efforts to make such functionalities generic. We start by a generic induc- tive construction of the intended class of hierarchical types. We conclude by relating the structure of the relevant base-functors with the algebraic structure which is required by the generic flattening functionality, in particular concerning its “deforestation” towards a linearly complex implementation. The instances we provide as examples include the widely known bill of materials “explode” operation.FC

Strictification of circular programs

Circular functional programs (necessarily evaluated lazily) have been used as algorithmic tools, as attribute grammar implementations, and as target for program transformation techniques. Classically, Richard Bird [1984] showed how to transform certain multitraversal programs (which could be evaluated strictly or lazily) into one-traversal ones using circular bindings. Can we go the other way, even for programs that are not in the image of his technique? That is the question we pursue in this paper. We develop an approach that on the one hand lets us deal with typical examples corresponding to attribute grammars, but on the other hand also helps to derive new algorithms for problems not previously in reach.(undefined