Taylor subsumes Scott, Berry, Kahn and Plotkin

The speculative ambition of replacing the old theory of program approximation based on syntactic continuity with the theory of resource consumption based on Taylor expansion and originating from the differential γ-calculus is nowadays at hand. Using this resource sensitive theory, we provide simple proofs of important results in γ-calculus that are usually demonstrated by exploiting Scott's continuity, Berry's stability or Kahn and Plotkin's sequentiality theory. A paradigmatic example is given by the Perpendicular Lines Lemma for the Böhm tree semantics, which is proved here simply by induction, but relying on the main properties of resource approximants: strong normalization, confluence and linearity

Intersection types and (positive) almost-sure termination

Randomized higher-order computation can be seen as being captured by a λ-calculus endowed with a single algebraic operation, namely a construct for binary probabilistic choice. What matters about such computations is the probability of obtaining any given result, rather than the possibility or the necessity of obtaining it, like in (non)deterministic computation. Termination, arguably the simplest kind of reachability problem, can be spelled out in at least two ways, depending on whether it talks about the probability of convergence or about the expected evaluation time, the second one providing a stronger guarantee. In this paper, we show that intersection types are capable of precisely characterizing both notions of termination inside a single system of types: the probability of convergence of any λ-term can be underapproximated by its type, while the underlying derivation's weight gives a lower bound to the term's expected number of steps to normal form. Noticeably, both approximations are tight-not only soundness but also completeness holds. The crucial ingredient is non-idempotency, without which it would be impossible to reason on the expected number of reduction steps which are necessary to completely evaluate any term. Besides, the kind of approximation we obtain is proved to be optimal recursion theoretically: no recursively enumerable formal system can do better than that

Intersection Types and (Positive) Almost-Sure Termination

Randomized higher-order computation can be seen as being captured by a lambda calculus endowed with a single algebraic operation, namely a construct for binary probabilistic choice. What matters about such computations is the probability of obtaining any given result, rather than the possibility or the necessity of obtaining it, like in (non)deterministic computation. Termination, arguably the simplest kind of reachability problem, can be spelled out in at least two ways, depending on whether it talks about the probability of convergence or about the expected evaluation time, the second one providing a stronger guarantee. In this paper, we show that intersection types are capable of precisely characterizing both notions of termination inside a single system of types: the probability of convergence of any lambda-term can be underapproximated by its type, while the underlying derivation's weight gives a lower bound to the term's expected number of steps to normal form. Noticeably, both approximations are tight -- not only soundness but also completeness holds. The crucial ingredient is non-idempotency, without which it would be impossible to reason on the expected number of reduction steps which are necessary to completely evaluate any term. Besides, the kind of approximation we obtain is proved to be optimal recursion theoretically: no recursively enumerable formal system can do better than that

The (In)Efficiency of interaction

Evaluating higher-order functional programs through abstract machines inspired by the geometry of the interaction is known to induce space efficiencies, the price being time performances often poorer than those obtainable with traditional, environment-based, abstract machines. Although families of lambda-terms for which the former is exponentially less efficient than the latter do exist, it is currently unknown how general this phenomenon is, and how far the inefficiencies can go, in the worst case. We answer these questions formulating four different well-known abstract machines inside a common definitional framework, this way being able to give sharp results about the relative time efficiencies. We also prove that non-idempotent intersection type theories are able to precisely reflect the time performances of the interactive abstract machine, this way showing that its time-inefficiency ultimately descends from the presence of higher-order types

Tight typings and split bounds

International audienceMulti types-aka non-idempotent intersection types-have been used to obtain quantitative bounds on higher-order programs, as pioneered by de Carvalho. Notably, they bound at the same time the number of evaluation steps and the size of the result. Recent results show that the number of steps can be taken as a reasonable time complexity measure. At the same time, however, these results suggest that multi types provide quite lax complexity bounds, because the size of the result can be exponentially bigger than the number of steps. Starting from this observation, we refine and generalise a technique introduced by Bernadet & Graham-Lengrand to provide exact bounds for the maximal strategy. Our typing judgements carry two counters, one measuring evaluation lengths and the other measuring result sizes. In order to emphasise the modularity of the approach, we provide exact bounds for four evaluation strategies, both in the λ-calculus (head, leftmost-outermost, and maximal evaluation) and in the linear substitution calculus (linear head evaluation). Our work aims at both capturing the results in the literature and extending them with new outcomes. Concerning the literature, it unifies de Carvalho and Bernadet & Graham-Lengrand via a uniform technique and a complexity-based perspective. The two main novelties are exact split bounds for the leftmost strategy-the only known strategy that evaluates terms to full normal forms and provides a reasonable complexity measure-and the observation that the computing device hidden behind multi types is the notion of substitution at a distance, as implemented by the linear substitution calculus