868 research outputs found
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
Rewriting Logic Semantics of a Plan Execution Language
The Plan Execution Interchange Language (PLEXIL) is a synchronous language
developed by NASA to support autonomous spacecraft operations. In this paper,
we propose a rewriting logic semantics of PLEXIL in Maude, a high-performance
logical engine. The rewriting logic semantics is by itself a formal interpreter
of the language and can be used as a semantic benchmark for the implementation
of PLEXIL executives. The implementation in Maude has the additional benefit of
making available to PLEXIL designers and developers all the formal analysis and
verification tools provided by Maude. The formalization of the PLEXIL semantics
in rewriting logic poses an interesting challenge due to the synchronous nature
of the language and the prioritized rules defining its semantics. To overcome
this difficulty, we propose a general procedure for simulating synchronous set
relations in rewriting logic that is sound and, for deterministic relations,
complete. We also report on two issues at the design level of the original
PLEXIL semantics that were identified with the help of the executable
specification in Maude
Meta SOS - A Maude Based SOS Meta-Theory Framework
Meta SOS is a software framework designed to integrate the results from the
meta-theory of structural operational semantics (SOS). These results include
deriving semantic properties of language constructs just by syntactically
analyzing their rule-based definition, as well as automatically deriving sound
and ground-complete axiomatizations for languages, when considering a notion of
behavioural equivalence. This paper describes the Meta SOS framework by
blending aspects from the meta-theory of SOS, details on their implementation
in Maude, and running examples.Comment: In Proceedings EXPRESS/SOS 2013, arXiv:1307.690
States and exceptions considered as dual effects
In this paper we consider the two major computational effects of states and
exceptions, from the point of view of diagrammatic logics. We get a surprising
result: there exists a symmetry between these two effects, based on the
well-known categorical duality between products and coproducts. More precisely,
the lookup and update operations for states are respectively dual to the throw
and catch operations for exceptions. This symmetry is deeply hidden in the
programming languages; in order to unveil it, we start from the monoidal
equational logic and we add progressively the logical features which are
necessary for dealing with either effect. This approach gives rise to a new
point of view on states and exceptions, which bypasses the problems due to the
non-algebraicity of handling exceptions
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