1,595 research outputs found
A Bi-Directional Refinement Algorithm for the Calculus of (Co)Inductive Constructions
The paper describes the refinement algorithm for the Calculus of
(Co)Inductive Constructions (CIC) implemented in the interactive theorem prover
Matita. The refinement algorithm is in charge of giving a meaning to the terms,
types and proof terms directly written by the user or generated by using
tactics, decision procedures or general automation. The terms are written in an
"external syntax" meant to be user friendly that allows omission of
information, untyped binders and a certain liberal use of user defined
sub-typing. The refiner modifies the terms to obtain related well typed terms
in the internal syntax understood by the kernel of the ITP. In particular, it
acts as a type inference algorithm when all the binders are untyped. The
proposed algorithm is bi-directional: given a term in external syntax and a
type expected for the term, it propagates as much typing information as
possible towards the leaves of the term. Traditional mono-directional
algorithms, instead, proceed in a bottom-up way by inferring the type of a
sub-term and comparing (unifying) it with the type expected by its context only
at the end. We propose some novel bi-directional rules for CIC that are
particularly effective. Among the benefits of bi-directionality we have better
error message reporting and better inference of dependent types. Moreover,
thanks to bi-directionality, the coercion system for sub-typing is more
effective and type inference generates simpler unification problems that are
more likely to be solved by the inherently incomplete higher order unification
algorithms implemented. Finally we introduce in the external syntax the notion
of vector of placeholders that enables to omit at once an arbitrary number of
arguments. Vectors of placeholders allow a trivial implementation of implicit
arguments and greatly simplify the implementation of primitive and simple
tactics
Elaboration in Dependent Type Theory
To be usable in practice, interactive theorem provers need to provide
convenient and efficient means of writing expressions, definitions, and proofs.
This involves inferring information that is often left implicit in an ordinary
mathematical text, and resolving ambiguities in mathematical expressions. We
refer to the process of passing from a quasi-formal and partially-specified
expression to a completely precise formal one as elaboration. We describe an
elaboration algorithm for dependent type theory that has been implemented in
the Lean theorem prover. Lean's elaborator supports higher-order unification,
type class inference, ad hoc overloading, insertion of coercions, the use of
tactics, and the computational reduction of terms. The interactions between
these components are subtle and complex, and the elaboration algorithm has been
carefully designed to balance efficiency and usability. We describe the central
design goals, and the means by which they are achieved
Gradual Certified Programming in Coq
Expressive static typing disciplines are a powerful way to achieve
high-quality software. However, the adoption cost of such techniques should not
be under-estimated. Just like gradual typing allows for a smooth transition
from dynamically-typed to statically-typed programs, it seems desirable to
support a gradual path to certified programming. We explore gradual certified
programming in Coq, providing the possibility to postpone the proofs of
selected properties, and to check "at runtime" whether the properties actually
hold. Casts can be integrated with the implicit coercion mechanism of Coq to
support implicit cast insertion a la gradual typing. Additionally, when
extracting Coq functions to mainstream languages, our encoding of casts
supports lifting assumed properties into runtime checks. Much to our surprise,
it is not necessary to extend Coq in any way to support gradual certified
programming. A simple mix of type classes and axioms makes it possible to bring
gradual certified programming to Coq in a straightforward manner.Comment: DLS'15 final version, Proceedings of the ACM Dynamic Languages
Symposium (DLS 2015
First-Class Subtypes
First class type equalities, in the form of generalized algebraic data types
(GADTs), are commonly found in functional programs. However, first-class
representations of other relations between types, such as subtyping, are not
yet directly supported in most functional programming languages.
We present several encodings of first-class subtypes using existing features
of the OCaml language (made more convenient by the proposed modular implicits
extension), show that any such encodings are interconvertible, and illustrate
the utility of the encodings with several examples.Comment: In Proceedings ML 2017, arXiv:1905.0590
Logical relations for coherence of effect subtyping
A coercion semantics of a programming language with subtyping is typically
defined on typing derivations rather than on typing judgments. To avoid
semantic ambiguity, such a semantics is expected to be coherent, i.e.,
independent of the typing derivation for a given typing judgment. In this
article we present heterogeneous, biorthogonal, step-indexed logical relations
for establishing the coherence of coercion semantics of programming languages
with subtyping. To illustrate the effectiveness of the proof method, we develop
a proof of coherence of a type-directed, selective CPS translation from a typed
call-by-value lambda calculus with delimited continuations and control-effect
subtyping. The article is accompanied by a Coq formalization that relies on a
novel shallow embedding of a logic for reasoning about step-indexing
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: An Empirical Study of Implicit Type Conversions in JavaScript
Most popular programming languages support situations where a value of one type is converted into a value of another type without any explicit cast. Such implicit type conversions, or type coercions, are a highly controversial language feature. Proponents argue that type coercions enable writing concise code. Opponents argue that type coercions are error-prone and that they reduce the understandability of programs. This paper studies the use of type coercions in JavaScript, a language notorious for its widespread use of coercions. We dynamically analyze hundreds of programs, including real-world web applications and popular benchmark programs. We find that coercions are widely used (in 80.42% of all function executions) and that most coercions are likely to be harmless (98.85%). Furthermore, we identify a set of rarely occurring and potentially harmful coercions that safer subsets of JavaScript or future language designs may want to disallow. Our results suggest that type coercions are significantly less evil than commonly assumed and that analyses targeted at real-world JavaScript programs must consider coercions
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