Rigid Mixin Modules

International audienceMixin modules are a notion of modules that allows cross-module recursion and late binding, two features missing in ML-style modules. They have been well defined in a call-by-name setting, but in a call-by-value setting, they tend to conflict with the usual static restrictions on recursive definitions. Moreover, the semantics of instantiation has to specify an order of evaluation, which involves a difficult design choice. Previous proposals rely on the dependencies between components to compute a valid order of evaluation. In such systems, mixin module types must carry some information on the dependencies between their components, which makes them verbose. In this paper, we propose a new, simpler design for mixin modules in a call-by-value setting, which avoids this problem

HERMIT: Mechanized Reasoning during Compilation in the Glasgow Haskell Compiler

It is difficult to write programs which are both correct and fast. A promising approach, functional programming, is based on the idea of using pure, mathematical functions to construct programs. With effort, it is possible to establish a connection between a specification written in a functional language, which has been proven correct, and a fast implementation, via program transformation. When practiced in the functional programming community, this style of reasoning is still typically performed by hand, by either modifying the source code or using pen-and-paper. Unfortunately, performing such semi-formal reasoning by directly modifying the source code often obfuscates the program, and pen-and-paper reasoning becomes outdated as the program changes over time. Even so, this semi-formal reasoning prevails because formal reasoning is time-consuming, and requires considerable expertise. Formal reasoning tools often only work for a subset of the target language, or require programs to be implemented in a custom language for reasoning. This dissertation investigates a solution, called HERMIT, which mechanizes reasoning during compilation. HERMIT can be used to prove properties about programs written in the Haskell functional programming language, or transform them to improve their performance. Reasoning in HERMIT proceeds in a style familiar to practitioners of pen-and-paper reasoning, and mechanization allows these techniques to be applied to real-world programs with greater confidence. HERMIT can also re-check recorded reasoning steps on subsequent compilations, enforcing a connection with the program as the program is developed. HERMIT is the first system capable of directly reasoning about the full Haskell language. The design and implementation of HERMIT, motivated both by typical reasoning tasks and HERMIT's place in the Haskell ecosystem, is presented in detail. Three case studies investigate HERMIT's capability to reason in practice. These case studies demonstrate that semi-formal reasoning with HERMIT lowers the barrier to writing programs which are both correct and fast

A categorical approach to open and interconnected dynamical systems

In his 1986 Automatica paper Willems introduced the influential behavioural approach to control theory with an investigation of linear time-invariant (LTI) discrete dynamical systems. The behavioural approach places open systems at its centre, modelling by tearing, zooming, and linking. We show that these ideas are naturally expressed in the language of symmetric monoidal categories.Our main result gives an intuitive sound and fully complete string diagram algebra for reasoning about LTI systems. These string diagrams are closely related to the classical notion of signal flow graphs, endowed with semantics as multi-input multi-output transducers that process discrete streams with an infinite past as well as an infinite future. At the categorical level, the algebraic characterisation is that of the prop of corelations.Using this framework, we derive a novel structural characterisation of controllability, and consequently provide a methodology for analysing controllability of networked and interconnected systems. We argue that this has the potential of providing elegant, simple, and efficient solutions to problems arising in the analysis of systems over networks, a vibrant research area at the crossing of control theory and computer science.<br/

Secure Compilation (Dagstuhl Seminar 18201)

Secure compilation is an emerging field that puts together advances in security, programming languages, verification, systems, and hardware architectures in order to devise secure compilation chains that eliminate many of today\u27s vulnerabilities. Secure compilation aims to protect a source language\u27s abstractions in compiled code, even against low-level attacks. For a concrete example, all modern languages provide a notion of structured control flow and an invoked procedure is expected to return to the right place. However, today\u27s compilation chains (compilers, linkers, loaders, runtime systems, hardware) cannot efficiently enforce this abstraction: linked low-level code can call and return to arbitrary instructions or smash the stack, blatantly violating the high-level abstraction. The emerging secure compilation community aims to address such problems by devising formal security criteria, efficient enforcement mechanisms, and effective proof techniques. This seminar strived to take a broad and inclusive view of secure compilation and to provide a forum for discussion on the topic. The goal was to identify interesting research directions and open challenges by bringing together people working on building secure compilation chains, on developing proof techniques and verification tools, and on designing security mechanisms

The Calculus of Signal Flow Diagrams I: Linear relations on streams

We introduce a graphical syntax for signal flow diagrams based on the language of symmetric monoidal categories. Using universal categorical constructions, we provide a stream semantics and a sound and complete axiomatisation. A certain class of diagrams captures the orthodox notion of signal flow graph used in control theory; we show that any diagram of our syntax can be realised, via rewriting in the equational theory, as a signal flow graph