5,518 research outputs found
The C++0x "Concepts" Effort
C++0x is the working title for the revision of the ISO standard of the C++
programming language that was originally planned for release in 2009 but that
was delayed to 2011. The largest language extension in C++0x was "concepts",
that is, a collection of features for constraining template parameters. In
September of 2008, the C++ standards committee voted the concepts extension
into C++0x, but then in July of 2009, the committee voted the concepts
extension back out of C++0x.
This article is my account of the technical challenges and debates within the
"concepts" effort in the years 2003 to 2009. To provide some background, the
article also describes the design space for constrained parametric
polymorphism, or what is colloquially know as constrained generics. While this
article is meant to be generally accessible, the writing is aimed toward
readers with background in functional programming and programming language
theory. This article grew out of a lecture at the Spring School on Generic and
Indexed Programming at the University of Oxford, March 2010
Propositional Encoding of Constraints over Tree-Shaped Data
We present a functional programming language for specifying constraints over
tree-shaped data. The language allows for Haskell-like algebraic data types and
pattern matching. Our constraint compiler CO4 translates these programs into
satisfiability problems in propositional logic. We present an application from
the area of automated analysis of (non-)termination of rewrite systems
From ACT-ONE to Miranda, a Translation Experiment
It is now almost universally acknowledged that the data language ACT-ONE associated with the formal description technique LOTOS is inappropriate for the purpose of OSI formal description. In response to this the LOTOS restandardisation activity plans to replace ACT-ONE with a functional language. Thus, compatibility between ACT-ONE and the replacement data language becomes an issue. In response to this, we present an experimental investigation of backward compatibility between ACT-ONE and the new LOTOS data language. Specifically, we investigate translating ACT-ONE data types into the functional language Miranda. Miranda has been chosen as it is a widely used functional programming language and it is close in form to the anticipated new data language. This work serves as a ``verification of concept'' for translating ACT-ONE to the E-LOTOS data language. It identifies the bounds on embedding ACT-ONE in a functional data language. In particular, it indicates what can be translated and what cannot be translated. In addition, the paper reveals pertinent issues which can inform the E-LOTOS work. For example, which constructs are needed in E-LOTOS in order to support the class of data type specifications typically made in the LOTOS setting? We conclude with a number of specific recommendations for the E-LOTOS data language
Strategic polymorphism requires just two combinators!
In previous work, we introduced the notion of functional strategies:
first-class generic functions that can traverse terms of any type while mixing
uniform and type-specific behaviour. Functional strategies transpose the notion
of term rewriting strategies (with coverage of traversal) to the functional
programming paradigm. Meanwhile, a number of Haskell-based models and
combinator suites were proposed to support generic programming with functional
strategies.
In the present paper, we provide a compact and matured reconstruction of
functional strategies. We capture strategic polymorphism by just two primitive
combinators. This is done without commitment to a specific functional language.
We analyse the design space for implementational models of functional
strategies. For completeness, we also provide an operational reference model
for implementing functional strategies (in Haskell). We demonstrate the
generality of our approach by reconstructing representative fragments of the
Strafunski library for functional strategies.Comment: A preliminary version of this paper was presented at IFL 2002, and
included in the informal preproceedings of the worksho
Towards MKM in the Large: Modular Representation and Scalable Software Architecture
MKM has been defined as the quest for technologies to manage mathematical
knowledge. MKM "in the small" is well-studied, so the real problem is to scale
up to large, highly interconnected corpora: "MKM in the large". We contend that
advances in two areas are needed to reach this goal. We need representation
languages that support incremental processing of all primitive MKM operations,
and we need software architectures and implementations that implement these
operations scalably on large knowledge bases.
We present instances of both in this paper: the MMT framework for modular
theory-graphs that integrates meta-logical foundations, which forms the base of
the next OMDoc version; and TNTBase, a versioned storage system for XML-based
document formats. TNTBase becomes an MMT database by instantiating it with
special MKM operations for MMT.Comment: To appear in The 9th International Conference on Mathematical
Knowledge Management: MKM 201
Inferring Algebraic Effects
We present a complete polymorphic effect inference algorithm for an ML-style
language with handlers of not only exceptions, but of any other algebraic
effect such as input & output, mutable references and many others. Our main aim
is to offer the programmer a useful insight into the effectful behaviour of
programs. Handlers help here by cutting down possible effects and the resulting
lengthy output that often plagues precise effect systems. Additionally, we
present a set of methods that further simplify the displayed types, some even
by deliberately hiding inferred information from the programmer
Parametrized Stochastic Grammars for RNA Secondary Structure Prediction
We propose a two-level stochastic context-free grammar (SCFG) architecture
for parametrized stochastic modeling of a family of RNA sequences, including
their secondary structure. A stochastic model of this type can be used for
maximum a posteriori estimation of the secondary structure of any new sequence
in the family. The proposed SCFG architecture models RNA subsequences
comprising paired bases as stochastically weighted Dyck-language words, i.e.,
as weighted balanced-parenthesis expressions. The length of each run of
unpaired bases, forming a loop or a bulge, is taken to have a phase-type
distribution: that of the hitting time in a finite-state Markov chain. Without
loss of generality, each such Markov chain can be taken to have a bounded
complexity. The scheme yields an overall family SCFG with a manageable number
of parameters.Comment: 5 pages, submitted to the 2007 Information Theory and Applications
Workshop (ITA 2007
- …